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Freshly Made Sketches #641

Freshly Made Sketches #641 published on 7 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #641

Hi everyone! I am the sketch designer over at Freshly Made Sketches and I hope you will enjoy the options on this one.

I’m still working on finding the right card for a friend to give his wife. After narrowing some things down and showing him some previous cards he narrowed it down to: hummingbird, vintage feel, touches of blue. I think maybe I’ve gotten closer to the mark. I did lots of ink smooshing, splattering and brushing it on. Almost all of it was Distress Oxide ink and all the paper was Distress Heavystock. I’m simply obsessed with the details on this hummingbird from Honey Bee Stamps. I just played with shading on greens and grays (Peeled Paint, Rustic Wilderness, Lost Shadow) plus a bit of Rusty Hinge and Candied Apple for his throat. I added Lost Shadow Distress Spray Stain for more splattering.

For the flower, I used Tattered Rose and Worn Lipstick plus a little bit of the Rusty Hinge left on the brush to pull in a little bit of orange. I used the Vintage Flora background stamp inked with a combination of Antique Linen and Rusty Hinge Oxide inks. I spritzed, stamped off and then applied the paper to the stamp to get a less detailed image. I then spritzed with Tumbled Glass Distress Spray and added more Tumbled Glass Oxide to the edges. The sentiment is from my go-to Mini Messages.

Thanks for dropping into today. Let me know if you think I hit the mark for my friend’s request. See you again soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #640

Freshly Made Sketches #640 published on 5 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #640

Hi all!! I’ve been dodging weather around the country for the last week but managed to have a day to create a card. I opted to pull out a new to me die set that matches the sketch (although in reverse). Our sketch is courtesy of our wonderful Judy Rozema and it leaves lots of fun options.

The Lovely Layers: Dianthus dies have this little group of 3 flowers that I thought would work for the sketch…hopeful Judy forgives my flip. Using my Distress Inkds with pinks and oranges, I blended the flowers. I just love how they layer! Added the extra leaf layers for dimension and the flower was done. I wanted to use a dark background the make it pop but it seemed a little plain.

I added an extra panel that I embossed with the Sandie’s Garden 3D embossing folder. The sentiment is from the Lean on Each Other stamp set with white heat embossing on the same blue as the background.

Hope you are having a great week and will come join us for the fun! Thanks so much for stopping in. See you soon.

Freshly Made Sketches #639

Freshly Made Sketches #639 published on 4 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #639

Hello everyone! Well, the last few weeks have been all that I promised…busy! But we got the youngest graduated from high school (and I didn’t fall apart), I got to see the oldest’s regatta and we went on a family vacation. Now I’m trying to get back to reality and out on a trip. We have a beautiful sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches from the lovely Amy O’Neill.

A bit of a simple take to get back into the groove (and to actually get it made). I was inspired by some beautiful flowers I saw when we were on vacation in Seattle. I think they are lupines but if you know differently, please let me know (photo below)! Using some paper that already had some Distress Ink stamping and splatters, I cut out the flowers and greenery. I added more Distress Ink for shading and character.

I chose a some pretty papers from the Grain and Grunge plus Vintage Love packs by Honey Bee Stamps and then added a sentiment from my go-to set, Mini Messages. I opted for gold embossing and added a few gold pearls to go along. A Captain that has led the way for many women is retiring this month so I thought it would be nice to make her a special card.

I hope this finds you well and starting to enjoy a bit of summer. As you can imagine, this is the beginning of the busy work season for me. I’ll create as much as I can but also I’m trying to hold on to every moment with my youngest before he heads out to college in August. Thanks for always being so supportive!

I showed a closeup of the flowers but there was a whole field of these. It was glorious! Thanks for stopping in today. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #635

Freshly Made Sketches #635 published on 3 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #635

Another amazing sketch from Freshly Made Sketches this week. A clean classic from our classically fabulous Jen Brum! Lots of room for scene building, patterned papers or die cuts.

I wanted to play around with a watercolor look using solid image stamps and love how this turned out. The stamp set is a retired one from Honey Bee Stamps (Bold Botanicals) but you may have similar versions in your stash. Using Distress Ink, I inked up the stamp, spritzed with water and then stamped. On some of the images, I just stamped again for that faded look. I’ll admit that this is a bit addictive and fun to experiment with!

Once I was done inking, I distressed the edges of the paper (watercolor paper) and then inked more Distress Ink onto the edges and created more of an aged look. I splattered with some of the Weathered Wood and then set everything aside to dry. I tied up some linen thread with a button and added a sentiment with double banners. A friend has asked me to create a card for his wife who is pregnant with twins and I hope this will be a contender for him to choose from. I chose a basic sentiment with that in mind. You can only see it a little but I stamped some of the flowers on the corner of the envelope and finished an inside panel with a few more flowers in a bottom corner.

I hope you like this one. I’d love to hear what you think so I know if this feels special enough for my friend. Thanks so much for stopping in. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #632

Freshly Made Sketches #632 published on 6 Comments 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 6 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 #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 #625

Freshly Made Sketches #625 published on 3 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #625

As I was coming over to write this post, I realized I never posted last week’s FMS card here. I did over at Instagram so a good time to remind you that I’m there as well: jentimko on Instagram. With that, we have a new sketch from Jen Brum for this week at Freshly Made Sketches and it is super fun. I took a little twist on the circle with a partial die cut edge to line it up with a die cut image.

I just got this sweet image from Colorado Craft Company called Finally Spring and thought it would be fun to use for the sketch. I love that the coloring only takes a few minutes since the images are so small. I used my Copics to create what I saw as cherry blossoms. Once that was completed I pondered how to make this work best.

I brushed on some Distress Oxides in Tumbled Glass and Broken China to “split” the panel. Then I added some Saltwater Taffy to an additional panel. Using the die for the image I did a partial die cut edge so that the image could nestle up in the cutouts. I make the image stand up a bit more, I cut two extra backing pieces to stack behind the image. Finally a sweet sentiment from the set.

I hope you like my interpretation of the sketch and will come over to join us. Thanks so much for stopping in today. 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

Freshly Made Sketches #606 published on 5 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #606

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!

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