Now look at this fabulous sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches this week!!  This one is courtesy of the lovely Rita Wright from Rita’s Creations.  Rita is such a fabulous stamper…you will just love the card she has made with her own sketch!  Make sure you go take a look at her creation and those of the other designers on the team.

I decided take a masculine direction with this one.  I love this leaf from Faith in Nature (Hostess).  For this one, I inked with Versamark, then Early Espresso and stamper.  Then I heat embossed with Clear Stampin’ Emboss Powder.  I only did a little light coloring to add some depth.  I embossed the background with the Big Show and my Square Lattice Embossing Folder.  For the crossing panels, I added some Early Espresso Quilted Satin Ribbon (Holiday Mini).  I love how the ribbon looks with the embossed background.

I hope your week is going well.  I can’t wait to see everyone’s use of this sketch!  I’m certain the entries will be spectacular.  Have a great day!

Stamps:  Faith in Nature, Teeny Tiny Wishes; Paper:  Naturals Ivory, Early Espresso; Ink:  Early Espresso, Versamark; Accessories:  Big Shot, Square Lattice EF, Quilted Ribbon, Heat Tool, Clear Stampin’ Emboss Powder, Dimensionals

Welcome to a new year of challenges from Freshly Made Sketches!  This week’s sketch is courtesy of the amazing Tui Nathan of Stampin-Time.  Her style is always highlighted by the most lovely details and she has brought us a layout that lends itself to so many possibilities.

With the beginning of a new year it seemed appropriate to use this sketch for a baby card.  My husband works with the West Virginia Air National Guard and as you may imagine there are some serious West Virginia fans there.  This was my color motivation since this card is for some friends from work who had a baby boy.  I pulled out my Button Buddies set.  It is one of my favorites from the new catalog for the pure fun of it!  The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes.  I used a print from the Just Add Cake DSP against a Night of Navy background.  Some retired Night of Navy Satin Ribbon was used to add a little dimension across the card.  Of course the buttons make this…aren’t they fun??!!

You will be impressed with what the design team has done with this sketch and we can’t wait to see what you will show us!  Come along and join the fun!

Today is the first day back at United Airlines for me.  Wish me luck in going back to “school” (more here if you missed the announcement)!  Thanks for stopping in today.  See you soon!

Stamps  Button Buddies, Teeny Tiny Wishes; Paper:  Just Add Cake DSP, Night of Navy, Whisper White; Ink:  So Saffron, Night of Navy; Accessories:  Night of Navy Satin Ribbon (retired), Subtles Buttons, Regals Buttons, Thread

Happy Wednesday!  I am here with Freshly Made Sketches Challenge #15.  The lovely and talented Cindy Hall from Pretty Impact brought us the sketch today.  I love that it is different and made me think a bit.  I tend to go towards linear things so those little tilted panels seem to add such interest!

I knew when I saw the layout that I wanted one of the snowmen from Snow Much Fun to be on the center panel.  I chose this little trouble making fellow because my boys really like him.  They love that he has a sly grin as he gets ready to start a snowball fight (much like two little boys I know).  I wanted to make him a little bit vintage but with a “clean” twist.  No distressing or sponging here.  I used the colors from Well Worn DSP as my starting place to color the snowman (Not Quite Navy, River Rock, Early Espresso).  I then chose this Not Quite Navy print for the panels and River Rock stock as a background.  It was still missing something so I added some River Rock Seam Binding.  What was that??? River Rock??  Ok, I really added some Very Vanilla Seam Binding that had been dyed River Rock.  Dying is a great solution when you only need a little of a color.  A button tied with Linen Thread and a part of a sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes punched with the Jewelry Tag Punch were the finishing touches.

I hope you like my “vintage light” version of a snowman.  Just wait until you see what the rest of the team has made.  As always, their work is so fantastic!

Thanks so much for stopping it today!  I hope your week is going well.  See you again soon!

Stamps:  Snow Much Fun, Teeny Tiny Wishes; Paper:  Well Worn DSP, River Rock, Early Espresso, Watercolor; Ink:  Not Quite Navy, River Rock, Crumb Cake, Stazon, Blushing Bride, Tangerine Tango; Accessories:  Blender Pen, Very Vanilla Seam Binding, Neutrals Buttons, Linen Thread, Sticky Strip, Mini Glue Dots

Welcome back to another challenge from Freshly Made Sketches!  I am the hostess this week and this is my very first sketch!  I love square cards so it seemed perfect to use one this week.  I also know that in the middle of holiday card making I seem to end up with lots of designer paper scraps.  I hoped that this sketch would provide a way to use them.

When I intially designed the sketch I had intended to use it very literally with a snowflake from Northern Frost.  I realized, however, that I have been using that die a whole lot so wanted to shake it up a bit….but not too far.  I went with my go-to stamp set for the season this year, Bright Hopes.  I love this wreath!  Jen Mitchell has been using her Deck the Halls DSP from last year on a lot of cards lately and I have been admiring them all!  I went digging in my paper pile.  Low and behold…I had some!  Yippee!  And how pretty it is with the wreath!  I wanted to add a little bow to the wreath and chose to do another fork bow (tutorial here).  I used the Early Espresso Quilted Ribbon for this one.  I chose to put the sentiment in place of the snowflake and keep it clean.

Well, since the design team has already made some fabulous cards with the sketch, I am breathing a bit easier.  Make sure you stop over the the challenge site and see them.  I love the variety of interpretations!  I know you will show us even more cool ways to use the layout!

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you are having a great week!  See you again soon!

Stamp:  Bright Hopes; Paper:  Deck the Halls DSP (retired), Early Espresso, Very Vanilla; Ink:  Early Espresso; Accessories:  Early Espresso Quilted Satin Ribbon, Dimensionals

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The layout from Freshly Made Sketches this week is courtesy of the amazing Lesley Croghan from Always Playing with Paper.  Lesley is an incredibly talented stamper (who apparently never sleeps!).  She is the creator of the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge as well as the Paper Players Challenge.  All this takes a back seat to her just being a fantastic person…make sure you go check out her blog.  I know you will find new favorites there.

I definitely put emphasis on the clean part of the design today.  I knew I wanted to use the Silver Glimmer Paper to create snowflakes with my Northern Frost Die and wow are they pretty (sadly, the camera just never captures the sparkle).  With the emphasis on those snowflakes I kept the rest of the card fairly neutral.  I used the Snow Burst Embossing Folder on both Whisper White and Cherry Cobbler then chose one to show the embossed side and one to show the debossed side.  I tied on some Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding for balance and then topped off the snowflakes with Basic Pearls.  Yes, I did color them Cherry Cobbler.  You see, I have a brother-in-law that used to work for Sharpie and when I was up visiting their house a couple of weekends ago I asked if they had this color.  When my dear sister-in-law said she did, she was kind enough to let me come home with it.  I debated adding a sentiment but, after staring at the card for a couple of days, decided to go without.  I may add it on as a tag from the bow.  What do you think??

You will be amazed by the work the design team has for you this week.  Such wonderful variety!!  I can’t wait to see what you do with the sketch…so many choices for those shapes!

I’ll be back tomorrow with my latest project for the Creative Crew.  Until then, have a great day!!  Thanks so much for dropping by!

Paper:  Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White, Silver Glimmer Paper; Accessories:  Big Shot, Northern Frost Die, Snow Burst EF, Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding, Basic Pearls, Dimensionals

Happy Wednesday!  Welcome back for another fun challenge from Freshly Made Sketches!  This week’s sketch is courtesy of the amazing Jen Mitchell from I Create and boy does she ever create!  Her style is so cool.  She has a knack for wonderful clean lines but her cards always have a “wow” factor!

I took another non-holiday turn for this card.  I don’t know about you but I have some family members who have December birthdays.  I always try to make something for them that makes them feel special and that in no way reflects Christmas.  So out came the Beau Chateau DSP and off I went.  This paper seems to call out for a flower but instead of stamping one, I created one from my Fun Flowers die.  I folded up a piece of wrapping tissue paper and ran it through the Big Shot.  Since my tissue paper was white and this paper has a sponged element I sponged the layers with some Crumb Cake ink.  The center of the flower is a Crumb Cake button from my Neutrals pack.  The little banner is stamped on another piece of DSP from the set and grounded with an additional button.   A little bit of Linen Thread was tied onto both buttons to complete the look.  Between the Big Shot and the DSP, this is one of those cards that looks harder than it is…love it when that happens!

Thanks so much for dropping in today.  Make sure you go see what the rest of the team has created to inspire you.  They always amaze me!  I certainly hope that you get some crafting time this week and will show us your version of the sketch.  I will be off for a few days for the Thanksgiving holiday but next week promises to be full of posts!  For those of you in the US, I wish you a safe and blessed Thanksgiving!  See you soon!

Stamp:  All Holidays (retired); Paper:  Beau Chateau DSP, Soft Suede; Ink:  Soft Suede, Crumb Cake; Accessories:  Big Shot, Fun Flowers Die, Neutrals Buttons, Linen Thread, Stamp-a-ma-jig, Sponges, Wrapping Tissue Paper

Welcome back for another Wednesday challenge from Freshly Made Sketches!  This week’s sketch is courtesy of Linda Callahan from Stampin’ Seasons.  She is a remarkably talented stamper and her sketch has so many fantastic possibilities.

I figured it was time to pull out a Christmas card for you so here is my tall snowman from Snow Much Fun.  I will warn you about the hazards of stamping with people like the design team at FMS.  I had resisted this set all the way until my last order.  After I saw SO MANY cute cards, I realized that “resistance is futile”!!  So…here he is!  The best part is that the watercoloring takes almost no time at all.  Fabulous!  Now in order to make this guy work for the sketch, I had to, um, cut off his legs.  There are some (Karen Barber – who also had a hilarious set of cards about the two snowmen) that believe snowmen should not have legs.  Frankly, I can see the virtues of both but today losing them worked.  I made this card with Basic Black, Real Red and Baja Breeze.  I find that I don’t use black nearly enough and since it was already out from yesterday’s card, it seemed perfect.  I added a little dimension by embossing the Real Red layer with the Snow Burst Embossing Folder.  Some little snowflakes finished it up (another enabled purchase…these ladies are dangerous!).  I colored a Basic Pearl with a Sharpie Marker to make it coordinate.  Cool!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a card from my Christmas Wow Class this week.  Yep…another snow man!  Thanks for dropping by today.  Don’t forget to drop by the Freshly Made Sketches challenge to see the amazing cards from the whole team.  Hope you can play this week!

Stamp:  Snow Much Fun; Paper:  Basic Black, Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Real Red; Ink:  Stazon Black, Real Red, Basic Black, Baja Breeze, Basic Gray; Accessories:  Big Shot, Snow Burst EF, Northern Frost Die, Basic Pearls, Sharpie Marker, Dimensionals

It is time for the Freshly Made Sketches latest challenge.  Oooh, take a look at this one!!  The fabulous layout is courtesy of the super talented Rita Wright at Rita’s Creations!  I love her style and her choice of the sketch shows why.  Just look at all the possiblities with this one!  If you have any questions, you just have to see the variety of projects from the team this week.  Lots of inspiration there!

Normally by November I am making all Christmas cards all the time.  Somehow this year, I continue to be inspired to make fall cards.  It might be because I LOVE fall in Virginia.  It might be because we are having lovely cold crisp mornings with warm afternoons.  Or it might be the Spice Cake DSP.  Hmmm!  I leave that to you to figure out!  More Mustard is, I admit, not a go-to color for me in general.  But this pattern called out to get used in this cool sketch this week.  I looked at my leaves (and I have lots), I looked at my flowers (lots there too) and then I realized that my Every Moment stamp was at the back of the stack.  That clearly had to be remedied!  I love this stamp set and the little bird here is awesome.  I have made him into several types of bird but today he is an orange fronted yellow finch.  Yep, look it up!  Of course I just colored him how I wanted and then figured out what he looked like but now we can all recognize a new kind of bird.  *smile*  I watercolored him with my Blender Pen after stamping him with Stazon Ink.  I added a sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes and a button to finish it.

The sketch does all the work here so it is perfect for beginning and advanced stampers alike.  Hope you will give it a try this week!  My boys are have some days off from school this week so I will be enjoying the beautiful weather with them.  I’ll be back next week though with lots of fun new things.  Thanks so much for stopping in today!

Stamps:  Every Moment, Teeny Tiny Wishes; Paper:  Spice Cake DSP, Early Espresso, Watercolor; Ink:  More Mustard, Early Espresso, Soft Suede, River Rock, Always Artichoke, Stazon; Accessories:  Blender Pens, Neutrals Buttons, Linen Thread, Dimensionals

I am so happy to show you this week’s great sketch from Freshly Made Sketches!  This one was chosen by the amazing Tui Nathan and it is awesome!  I am also thrilled to tell you that the team is join by two guests for the month of November, Christy Q at SchnauzerCrafts Creations and Lauri Ingram of Paperville.  You are going to love what they bring to the team!

I am still working on replenishing my supply of thank you cards (always good before the holiday season) and today’s sketch kind of led me there.  I was looking through my stamps and realized that I had yet another stamp that needed ink.  My poor little pears had apparently been neglected.  This pear is the stamp that drew me into this hostess set and I knew it was perfect for this layout.  I inked it with Versamark, the Early Espresso (just like yesterday) and embossed it with Clear Embossing Powder.  This allows you to watercolor without blending the words of the stamp.  I colored the pear in with Old Olive ink, starting light and adding a bit more to darken the edges.  The inside is left plain or barely colored to give the illusion of depth.  For the ribbon, I ran a line of Sticky Strip across the card and scrunched the Early Espresso Satin across on top.  I left enough to tie on the end.  The thread is simply colored with my Stampin’ Write Marker.  An Espresso button conceals the other end.  Of course the Framed Tulips Embossing Folder was put to work again to add a little something to the base layer.

I hope you have as much fun with this sketch as I did.  Just look at the variety of cards from the team and you will see how much you can do with it!  I’ll be back tomorrow with another project from the Creative Crew.   See you then!

Stamp:  Faith in Nature (hostess); Paper:  Early Espresso, Old Olive, Very Vanilla; Ink:  Old Olive, Early Espresso, Versamark; Accessories:  Big Shot, Framed Tulips Embossing Folder, Heat Tool, Clear Embossing Powder, Blender Pen, Sticky Strip, Neutrals Buttons, Dimensionals

Happy Wednesday!  I hope your week is going well!  Like I said last week, I have been doing lots of stamping and now you get to start seeing some of it.  Freshly Made Sketches has another fabulous challenge up today and you are going to love working with this layout!

While I have been doing a lot of holiday stamping, today’s card was a bit of a departure from that.  I continue to just be in love with the colors in the Paisley Petals DSP and this is why.  The beautiful paper creates a card that looks hard but isn’t!  The flower is cut out of one of the designs and of course it matches the other papers perfectly.  I used my new Designer Frames Embossing Folder to frame the sentiment (from Precious Butterflies – hostess).  The “bow” is created by looping some Very Vanilla Seam Binding and cinching it with thread tied through the button.  The thread is concealed by a Basic Pearl.  I added a little trio of pearls to the corner to finish it off.  When your designer paper has this much beautiful detail, there is little need for extra embellishment.

Make sure you go check out the incredible work from the whole design team and our guest designer, Holly Endress.  As usual, the variety is amazing!

I’ll be back tomorrow with one of the cards from my Christmas 101 Class that I have been holding this week.  Get ready to sparkle!!

Stamp:  Precious Butterflies (hostess); Paper:  Paisley Petals DSP, Naturals Ivory, Early Espresso; Ink:  Early Espresso; Accessories:  Big Shot, Designer Frames Embossing Folder; Very Vanilla Seam Binding, Neutrals Buttons, Basic Pearls, Dimensionals

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