It’s time for a new sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches this week, and our favorite Up-State New Yorker, Linda Callahan, is our hostess this week.  Take a look at this fun sketch:

While our hostess, Linda, may be buried in snow from another Nor’Easter, it’s beginning to feel like Spring here in Texas.  The grass is starting to green, the Bradford Pear trees are in full bloom, and the tulips are showing off their beautiful colors.  The pollen counts are also starting to soar, but we’ll just focus on the pretty stuff.

All of this Springtime activity made me want to create something with flowers.  As I still have some of the Lots of Happy card kit pieces available, I decided to use that with today’s sketch.

I colored the die-cut flowers with watercolor pencils, using a blender pen to blend the colors.  I cut out a square frame from Gold Glimmer Paper using the Layering Squares Framelits Dies.  Some gold thread was looped underneath the flowers.

The sentiment die-cut is from the Celebrate You Thinlits dies.  I originally cut the sentiment out three times using Basic Black card stock and layered the three die-cuts on top of each other.  However, when I placed it on the finished card, I thought it needed a bit more contrast.  So I cut out the sentiment one more time using Gold Foil Paper.  When I placed it on top, I intentionally let  a little bit of the black show underneath.  It adds a bit of a neat shadow effect.

We hope you’ll join us and create your own card using the sketch.  We love to see what you create as we browse the gallery.  Meanwhile, be sure to stop by the Freshly Made Sketches site to see what the design team has created for your inspiration.

Enjoy your Wednesday!  Thanks for stopping by!

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It’s time for a new sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches, and this week our favorite Massachusetts resident, Jen Mitchell, is our hostess.  She has a sketch that I love, which is easy to use and is very versatile.  Take a look:

I wanted to use some more of the Lots of Happy Card Kit, so I pulled out some pieces from it to get started.  I think these pieces are so pretty and feminine, so I decided to embrace that and made a very feminine card.  I colored the pieces with watercolor pencils and used a blender pen as well.

The Powder Pink card base (this is such a pretty shade of pink!) was stenciled on the bottom portion with some embossing paste and a stencil from the Pattern Party Decorative Masks.  I added a little strip of gold foil paper to further distinguish the two layers on the card base.

Some other little gold touches were added and this card came together pretty quickly.

We hope you’ll join us and create your own card using the sketch!  We love to see what you create as we browse the gallery.  Meanwhile, be sure to stop by the Freshly Made Sketches site to see what the design team has made for your inspiration.

Enjoy your Wednesday!  Thanks for stopping by!

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We’re ready with another sketch for you over at Freshly Made Sketches, and this week our favorite French friend, Cecile Ribon, is our hostess.  She has a classic style sketch for us that can be used in so many ways.  Take a look:

One of the products I love in the Occasions catalog is the Lots of Happy Card Kit.  It comes with some fabulous die-cuts that are ready to be colored, as well as lots of other beautiful elements to make 20 cards.  As soon as I pulled out some of the contents from the fabulous kraft box, I knew I wanted to use them for this sketch.  It seems that I rarely use these kits as they were intended to be used.  But that’s ok — creativity is a good thing.

I started by coloring the pretty lavender flowers with watercolor pencils (two new colors are exclusive to this kit — Flirty Flamingo and Lemon Lime Twist).  Once that was finished, I just arranged them with the vellum die-cut leaves that are also in the kit, and tied a bow on top.  The sentiment was stamped using a set in the kit (you also get a beautiful stamp set in the kit) on a gold foil die (which, you guessed it, is also in the kit).  Once I went to add the sentiment, I noticed I didn’t follow the sketch.  I couldn’t make it work, so I did deviate a little.  Oops!

The striped dsp background is from the Petal Passion dsp, and the pretty piece directly behind the flowers is from the kit.  It was all mounted on a Sweet Sugarplum card base.

We hope you’ll join us and create your own card using the sketch!  We love to see what you create as we browse the gallery.  Meanwhile, be sure to drop by the Freshly Made Sketches site to see the fabulous cards the design team has created for your inspiration.

Enjoy your Wednesday!  Thanks for stopping by!

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