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Posts categoriezed as Freshly Made Sketches

Freshly Made Sketches #616

Freshly Made Sketches #616 published on 4 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #616

Well, I never did get back to you last week. Sigh. Once I’m in the training center, all of my brain cells are apparently occupied and I totally forgot. So I guess that means I have some cards to share over the next couple of weeks. For today, I have the latest from Freshly Made Sketches and our last sketch of the year. The team will take a couple of weeks off and be back in the new year. We close out with this awesome sketch by the lovely Amy O’Neill. It is great for your last Christmas cards (that’s me!) or for moving into the new year with fresh stamps.

If you haven’t already heard, the wonderful Dawn Woleslagle is closing her shop, WPlus9. She isn’t leaving the industry, just moving more into designing. We are all winners for that. It looks to me like this set, Joyful Poinsettias, is already sold out but there are some other pretty things left at a huge discount. I have loved coloring this set but I needed fast for today. Heat embossing to the rescue! I set up the flowers and the sentiment, stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with silver. So fast, so elegant!

I used some glitter paper from Simon Says Stamp to complete the sketch and this card was done! Looks fancy, totally easy. Not going to lie, the hardest part of the process was getting photos. Still not great pictures but the silver was giving my camera all kinds of issues. It is so pretty in person so I hope you get the feel of it.

With the challenge open so long, you are welcome to join in at anytime and you can even add multiple cards. Hoping this sketch will be fun for you to use if you have some time off for crafting. Thanks for stopping in today. Really, really, I will have another card up soon. Until then, have a great week!

Freshly Made Sketches #614

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Well hello all! It has been a minute since I posted. Quick explanation…I’m in training to become a facilitator (instructor) for United’s Captain Leadership Training. This has taken much of my brain power and I have still been flying the line, of course. Quite the trip over Thanksgiving but so grateful to my many kind passengers and crew members! I muddled back into the craft room on Monday and got to work on this sketch. Not sure I quite hit the mark but I did have fun with the card. Our sketch designer this week at Freshly Made Sketches is the awesome Jen Brum. She also inspired this card with her all white beauty last week.

I started with the Lovely Layers: Winter Birds and created this cardinal. I chose a red cardstock and then added some Distress Ink to darken the back layers a bit. I cut the Lovely Layers: Winter Greenery from white card stock using my Bitty Buzz Cutter. I love this little table top die cut machine for working through these little dies and keeping the texture showing on them.

I decided I needed a little more color so I cut down my white panel and added a printed paper behind it from the new Holiday Wishes Paper Pack. The sentiment comes from Mini Messages: Holiday. Love all the sentiments but this one seems especially right. I added a few pearls to try to match the sketch a little more.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday if you celebrate it and are off to a good week. I’m back in training next week but I’ll be trying to get ahead a little with a card for while I’m gone. Goodness knows, I need some more Christmas cards to get done! Thanks for stopping in today. Make sure to go see all the beautiful work from the FMS Design Team and our Guest Designer this week.

Freshly Made Sketches #611

Freshly Made Sketches #611 published on 10 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #611

Do you hear it? That freight train of the holiday season has started coming down the tracks!! I’m pretty sure I’m already behind! I think you will be getting holiday cards non-stop from now on (ok, like you haven’t already but now I’m really, REALLY all in). Good thing the amazing Jen Mitchell has a great sketch for us this week at Freshly Made Sketches!

For the last few weeks, I’ve been doing lots with inking on die cuts. This week, I opted for clean. I pulled out products from Honey Bee Stamps latest release (and added some older things too) and had such fun on this. To start with, the Lovely Layers: Large Snowflake was going to be the star of the show. I wasn’t sure how the background was going to go so I started with the snowflake. First I cut it from glitter paper (it is GORGEOUS) but realized it wasn’t right for this card. So I used some watercolor paper with the thoughts I might ink it up. But just looking at all the detail on that thicker paper, I opted to just leave it plain and I love it. Using the same watercolor paper, I cut a card based and the other plain layer. I found this print from the old Vintage Holiday Paper Pack that has coordinating snowflakes (I love how HBS keeps things coordinated from season to season!!).

I decided that I needed a bit of shine on this so I heat embossed the sentiment from the Good Tidings Stamp Set in silver and cut out with a coordinating die. The shiny silver pearls are from the new Metallic Mix Pearls. Fun to have some super shiny choices! The ribbon with the silver edges was from my stash and was a great finish. I like that I can make a few more of these with no trouble and add to my stash!

I hope this week finds you well. I appreciate you stopping by and spending a few minutes of your day with me. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #610

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Hi all! Super quick today, getting this post finished after Halloween fun. I am the sketch designer over at Freshly Made Sketches this week. Tried something new and I hope you will like the idea.

I played with some new things from Honey Bee Stamps. The little elements are from Lovely Layers: Seasonal Frame and the sentiments are from Mini Messages: Holiday. I had some scraps that had some ink and spritzing an used those for cutting out the elements. Saved a bit of time.

I added everything to a background from the Grain & Grunge Paper Pack and added a few pearls. I love all the things that the team has done with the sketch and I hope you will find some fun ideas with this trio.

Thanks for dropping by. Sorry for the short post…off to fly tomorrow! Have a great rest of your week.

Freshly Made Sketches #609

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Hello everyone! Hope the week is treating you well. Sorry for all the quiet lately. I took some time off and went on a fall road trip with my sister! Apples, fall colors, gourd lantern making, glass pumpkin blowing and lots of laughs. It has been years since we spent the kind of time together and it was really good (photo below).

I’m back with the latest from Freshly Made Sketches and a sketch by our dear Judy Rozema This one has a few more layers and extra details but that gives lots of room for interpretation!

My starting place was actually the bottom of the card. I wanted to decide what to do with the little lines at the bottom of the sketch so I played with the idea of twine. While I was rooting around for the right one, I came across this little sequin trim and that was that. All in on gold! I used the Lovely Layers: Poinsettias dies on paper I inked with Distress Oxide Candied Apple ink. After cutting the layers, I added some more Distress Ink in the same color plus a little Aged Mahogany Distress Ink. I spritzed with water and then added some gold splatters.

I found this plaid pattern (or is it tartan…I never know) in the Make It Merry Paper Pack and used a sentiment from Foil Script: Holiday that I had already foiled that was sitting in my stack for just such an occasion. When I’m foiling sentiments, I tend to do as many as I can and leave them for when I need a quick card.

I hope you have fun with this one and find some time for yourself this week. Make sure to look at all the beautiful cards from our design team and our guest designer this week!

And some of the photos of our shenanigans:

Freshly Made Sketches #607

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We have a super interesting sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches created by the lovely Amy O’Neill. At first, I thought flowers and a large sentiment. Then, I thought stencils. And finally, I came to this plan. Well, sort of.

This started out with the plan to put a pinecone at the top and bottom of the sentiment. And for the record, a totally different sentiment (went through a few on this one). I just could not get the pinecone to look right in the opposite direction which is crazy since that is how they are on trees but… Some days are just like that. In any case, I did lots of spritzing and inking on these Lovely Layers: Winter Greenery dies. These Bitty Buzzwords: Holiday sentiment finally worked just right on a rectangle with gold heat embossing.

Again, the plan went a little sideways. I planned to add red berries to the holly but at the last minute opted to add some gold embossing to the leaves and elements. Once that was there, the red didn’t make sense. So I added some gold pearls instead! I had a little time when making this which is good because I just had to keep walking away until inspiration struck. But in the end, I had fun just playing around and that is the entire point of this, after all.

The team has all kinds of cool takes on this one and I think the gallery is going to be super fun! Oh, and as I’m typing I realized I missed the rectangle layer. Sigh. Hope Amy doesn’t fire me, lol! Have a lovely week. Stay safe and be kind. Goodness knows we need a lot of kind.

Freshly Made Sketches #604

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I love sketches with a clear focal point and that is just what we have for you this week! Our talented Cécile Ribon created a gorgeous challenge for Freshly Made Sketches!

The sketch has a big leaf and that put me right into fall creating mode! I pulled out my new Lovely Layers: Apple Barrel Dies and wow. Just wow. The details on these are incredible. I would love to say my shading was all my own idea but I watched the always amazing Dawn Woleslagle use these and I just went right ahead and mimicked her shading. I cut the pieces from Hammermill White Card Stock and then used Distress Inks for the shading. I cannot even tell you how much fun this was to do!! I didn’t have the same colors as Dawn so I just kind of winged it using some of the apples I got from a local orchard as my guide.

The key to the blending is all in those little blending brushes! The Bitty Bunny Blending Brushes are fabulous! You can color these little die cuts and add shading and nuance. So great! The background paper is from one of the “Free Bee” packs that come with orders from Honey Bee Stamps. The prints are always varied and so usable! Something about this one just made the apple barrel jump off the page. I heat embossed the sentiment onto brown card stock (another idea I stole from Dawn!). I added some leaves from the Lovely Layers: Autumn Bouquet set to try to comply with the sketch a little more.

I hope you like this one as much as I do. And please, do yourself a favor. Click Dawn’s name above and go watch her video. She is a genius! I hope you are having a wonderful week. See you again soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #602

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A new challenge from Freshly Made Sketches and the wonderful Kim Singdahlsen has a cool one for us. I see lots of opportunities for variation on this one!

Apparently I’m all in on Christmas cards already (worry not, I see some fall cards in my future too). I just had to play with some new (and new to me) items I got from Honey Bee Stamps last week. I got this awesome Lovely Layers: Trees die set that I think I will be using tons for the holidays. I used some patterned paper from the Spooktacular pack and picked a darker and lighter section from the same design. The only color I added was a little bit of Vintage Photo Distress Ink on the edges. I did add a bit of dimension between the tree layers and I love how that looks.

I opted to add some gold and pearl splatters to the tree for a little more of a holiday feel and then put it on a panel of two more prints. At first I tried this on white (too stark) and on kraft (too yellow). Then I pulled out this new Pebble Card Stock from Concord and 9th…just right! I added texture with the new Burlap 3D Embossing Folder and I love this effect. Products like this are unsung heroes and I’m always so happy when I add one to my stash. Finally, I did some gold embossing on the sentiment to pull those splatters a bit. This feels a bit like a masculine holiday card to me and could even be adapted to a non-holiday version.

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I liked making it. A little bit different for me but I’m super happy with it. I appreciate you stopping in today. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #601

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We had such fun with our sketch #600 celebration last week and now, onward! This week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge designer is the one-of-a-kind Linda Callahan. She is the BEST!

I felt this one was perfect for a little scene and what better than Christmas mice from Merry Little Mice? I went with some non-traditional colors and had such fun coloring these elements.

I think I stuck close enough to the sketch on the background. I played around with adding an additional pattern under the teal but it just didn’t work for me. I love the stars on this pattern from the Make It Merry Paper Pad and found the crossing teal patten in an older, retired pad. The sentiment is from one of my workhorse sets called Inside: Holiday Sentiments. If you don’t have a set like this one, go grab it!

Thanks so much for stopping in today. I hope you have some crafting time this week and will join us. I have to say that I had a pretty challenging week last week at the day job and I’m so thankful for my coloring and creating time to bring balance to the stress. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Freshly Made Sketches #600 – A Celebration

Freshly Made Sketches #600 – A Celebration published on 10 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #600 – A Celebration

Twelve years ago, Freshly Made Sketches was introduced as a new challenge for those who liked clean cards and sketches for inspiration. And here we are, still going strong. Some of the team started at the very beginning and others of us were added along the way. And oh, what a great team it is!! For this landmark, we are celebrating the players. Over the years, there are a few designers that are perpetual team favorites so we invited them in as guests for the celebration. And as we pick our weekly winners, they will be offered the chance to guest with us in a future challenge. Because, let’s face it, without the players there is no challenge!

I am ready to make the transition into fall and decided I’d make a card with more of a fall color scheme. I pulled out my pretty Lovely Layers: Sunflowers dies and had fun just getting a little inky. I started off with a brighter yellow and then added more depth and color. For the center, I mixed greens and browns and then used some of the same greens on the leaves. Something about the process of inking these die cuts really brings me joy when I have been away from the craft room. Guaranteed success! I went back and added a few splatter just for texture and I love the effect.

For the base, I started with some Neenah Desert Storm and stamped on the Farmhouse Check grid. I love this one for its neutral vibe and it always adds just the right something. The crossing panel is a scrap from the Team Tie Dye Paper Pack. Finally, the sentiment is from Inside: Thankful Sentiments. Perfect for this week’s theme.

I’m so thankful for the many years of kind words, inspiration and the camaraderie from this amazing group of creators. What started as another challenge has come to mean more to me than I could have ever imagined. Our team has been there for celebrations and heartbreaks. You, the players, have shown support, taught us techniques and have been a beautiful addition to my life. Truly, thank you!

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