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Freshly Made Sketches #632

Freshly Made Sketches #632 published on 1 Comment on Freshly Made Sketches #632

Welcome back for another sketch from Freshly Made Sketches! This week, our sketch designer is our one of the challenges fearless leaders, the amazing Jen Mitchell. I was so happy when I saw her sketch for the week because I was already working on the perfect thing to use.

I was so excited when I saw the Lovely Layers: Herb Garden set from Honey Bee Stamps on their last release. Like absurdly excited. First of all, I love growing herbs. But also, I love the idea of something that is easy to use for everybody on the card list! While the set comes with adorable little buckets, I immediately thought of the barrel from the Lovely Layers: Apple Barrel set and decided that was what I would use to hold my herbs.

I had a ridiculous amount of fun creating each herb and playing with the shading on greens and accents of browns and purples (all Distress Ink). The new Beeluxe Blending Brushes were key (I used the smallest ones, size 5 for the details and my Bitty Bunny Blending Brushes (from The Rabbit Hole Design) for the broader areas. Once I had them done, I moved on to the apple barrel. Bigger areas with my regular sized brushes, then working down to the tiny ones. I created the aged metal band and added a bit of Rusty Hinge Distress Oxide Ink. To create the illusion of dirt, I cut an extra of the back belly band and trimmed it off a bit, turned it upside down and made it black. Voilá…soil!

Finally, I created the herb signs to match the band. I found that if I did a little bit of brush work in a lighter gray and then did direct to paper with the ink, it allowed me to see the words better. A little extra Rusty Hinge on those too. Then it was just putting it together. I wanted it to look like a real garden so it is a bit haphazard with signs askew. I want this on my deck for real!! I did an ombré background and added the Burlap 3D textured embossing for a little more interest. The sentiment from Mini Messages is great to send just because! Finally a few sequins.

Hoping you have a great week and maybe even get to start thinking about your summer garden. I have some spinach in now and can’t wait until I can plant the rest of my faves. Make sure to go see the challenge blog and take a look at the beautiful creations from the FMS team. Thanks for stopping in today!

Freshly Made Sketches #630

Freshly Made Sketches #630 published on 5 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #630

A sweet spring card for you today using some brand new products. Our wonderful sketch at Freshly Made Sketches is courtesy of the lovely Judy Rozema and it allows for some interesting variations.

I just got some things from the latest release by Honey Bee Stamps and wanted to pull these dies out right away. Are they sweet?! I mean, that bird…and then the boots and all the flowers. It comes with an umbrella (which I could have used for real today) too. I cut all the elements from Hammermill White Card Stock and then used my Distress Inks to color them. I cannot wait to try some other variations!

I pulled a retiring piece of ombré patterned paper (Honey Bee Stamps) and added the three rectangles from the sketch. I thought about some texture on those but when I tried it…nope. Instead a pretty script sentiment and some matching pearls. Quick to put together after I did the ink blending on the elements.

The pictures today are a bit dark and the colors aren’t quite true. A rainy day and I just couldn’t get any lighting to cooperate. Ah well. Perfect day for those rain boots! Hope you are having a good week!

Freshly Made Sketches #629

Freshly Made Sketches #629 published on 6 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #629

Happy Wednesday, friends! Happy to see you today. I’m so happy to share the latest from Freshly Made Sketches. Our lovely Amy O’Neill is the sketch designer and I love her simple take this week.

My beautiful cherry tree is blooming in my front yard (just like the famous ones at the Tidal Basin in DC) and that inspired my card. I pulled out the Lovely Layers: Dogwood dies (they are a little less fussy than my Cherry Blossom die) and started playing with ink. Using Bitty Blender Brushes, I added Distress Ink on all the layers and then built the stem. Something about this always makes me happy, especially when I’ve been away from the craft room too long (like lately).

I chose one of the woodgrain prints from the Grain and Grunge paper pack and added a white strip to match the sketch. The sentiment is from Spring Joy (retiring) and I love the pretty font. I added a bit of twine and some pearls to finish it off. So happy to be back to the craft room…and I think I actually have a few weeks where I can get inky!

I hope you will come over to see the beautiful work done by the team and can spend a little time joining us this week. Thanks so much for stopping by! See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #626

Freshly Made Sketches #626 published on 6 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #626

We have another fun sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches and our designer, the lovely Cécile Ribon, gave us a great one. The half circle elements are particularly fun!

This card is directly inspired by the amazing Dawn Woleslagle. She did a live one night just playing with Distress Oxide ins and this background stamp from Honey Bee Stamps called Vintage Flora. She used exactly these colors! Her reminder was that when you are feeling a little flat on creativity, just pull out the inks and play. So I did just that! This background is the result and it is super cool.

This bluebird had been sitting on my desk for a few weeks waiting for plan and the background gave me just that! I added a bit of splattering and inking on the edges to match the style and knew it was going to work. With the extra ink after stamping the background, I had stamped again a few times. I used one of those and cut out the flowers, then added just a little more ink. I thought vellum would be perfect for the split semicircles and I love the texture it adds without covering anything up. Finally a little sentiment from the Mini Messages Set.

I hope this will inspire you to get out some inks and just play around! It is good for the soul! Thanks for stopping in today. See you soon!

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 #607

Freshly Made Sketches #607 published on 7 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #607

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 #606

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I suppose I am fully committed to holiday cards now. I mean…there might be others for fall but… Not for today at least. Our sketch designer at Freshly Made Sketches this week is our lovely Narelle. Usually when I see circles, I see flowers. But today, I saw trees. I know, trees are not circles but that’s just how I’m rolling this week.

I pulled out the Lovely Layers: Trees set to take a look. On a piece of Tim Holtz Heavystock, I spritzed some Distress Spray in Pumice Stone and Lost Shadow. Once that was dry, I cut out the trees. I wanted to go with the idea of snowy trees. I started by inking the back of the trees and the one tree without a layer. I blended on some Bundled Sage and Peeled Paint Distress Inks and then added a bit of Pumice Stone. I made the single tree a bit darker to make it look more like it was in the background. I used my brand new Waffleflower Grip Mat for blending and it is a game changer. No tape, nothing hard, works great. So happy I got it!!

For the top layer of the trees, I just added a little bit of Pumice Stone where I thought shadows might be. All of the layers got splatters of Hero Arts Metallic Ink (White) and Iridescent Shimmer Spray. I used a panel of the Heavystock for the base and blended on some Speckled Egg Distress Oxide Ink and added just a touch of Faded Jeans in the corner. On a scrap that had the splatters on it, I stamped the sentiment from Inside: Holiday Sentiments. As I was starting to put it together, I decided to add a bit more shimmer to the background with the Shimmer Spray and then added some gold pearls.

I had fun getting inky on this one today. These die cuts are so great and I find that I really enjoy just playing around with the ink to see what happens. Thanks so much for stopping in today. Hope you are having a great week!

Freshly Made Sketches #601

Freshly Made Sketches #601 published on 6 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #601

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 #573

Freshly Made Sketches #573 published on 4 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #573

I was in a bit of a time crunch for creating this week’s Freshly Made Sketches card. In fact, I thought I would just have to miss out. But Kim Singdahlsen created a great one and I had an a-ha moment. I thought that her panel could be a wood print and a card was born.

I chose one of the prints from the Grain and Grunge Paper Pack since it looked a bit like the pattern of the sketch. But then what? Yeah, I know it shocks you but I thought flower die cut! I went to one I had not used in a bit, Lovely Layers: Hydrangea. I love this one. As a total shortcut, I used another paper print for the flowers. All that color variation and texture…on the paper. No extra work for me!

The only thing left was to choose a sentiment. I love this one from the Seeds of Kindness set. It is great for a birthday or just to cheer someone. I added some Trinity Stamps Confetti Embellishments to finish. Simple, but I really love it!

You’ll see that the team has a variety of interpretations and that just means it is a great sketch. Come over and give it a go! Back out to work later today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week!

Freshly Made Sketches #566

Freshly Made Sketches #566 published on 4 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #566

I’m sharing the last Freshly Made Sketches challenge of the year and it is just fabulous for last minute holiday cards or cards made when you are done with holiday cards. The wonderful Narelle has one with tons of possibility, as you can see with the team’s cards.

In a crazy move, I made a card that is NOT a painted tree! I reverted back to some of my favorite dies of the season from Honey Bee Stamps. These Lovely Layers: Winter Greenery elements are just so pretty and I had not used the pinecones yet. I thought they were perfect for the sketch. I started with a piece of watercolor paper that I sprayed with Pumice Stone Distress Spray and added some Rustic Wilderness Distress Ink. I was just neutral with texture as a starting point.

Using that piece of paper, I cut out all of the elements for the card. All the little color textures on the pieces are because of that first layer of ink. Once each piece was cut, I added more Distress Ink to color each one its proper shade. I used Distress Ink because it is more sheer so I kept the other details and splatters.

I played around with the placement of the elements and then went to decide the background. I found this taupe-ish wood grain in my Grain and Grunge Paper Pack that was perfect. The gold foiled sentiment was just the right size for the sketch and I love the bit of shine it adds.

I hope you will come over and join us if you have time to craft during the holidays. You can join multiple times and we love seeing all you create! Thanks for stopping by today. Back soon with a few more cards I’ve been making for the holidays.

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