Star

Hi and welcome back!  It's time for a new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and this week our hostess is  Jen Mitchell.  Jen gave us a square sketch which is always a fun change.

I dug out some NBUS dies from MFT Stamps for my card and paired them with some patterned paper and some ink-blending to come up with my card.

It's all fairly self-explanatory so not much to say about the card this week.  I arranged all the die-cut and ink-blended elements together and adhered them to the card base after adding the patterned paper and a strip of red cardstock.  Finally I added a simple sentiment.

Thanks for looking.  The design team, as always, have created some fabulous cards so I hope you'll check them out.

I'm linking this card up to the Addicted to CAS challenge which has a prompt of "food".  

Products used:

Stamps: Movie Night (MFT)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Scattered Straw, Lost Shadow, Vintage Photo Distress Inks

Cardstock: White, Black, Poppy (Spellbinders), Paradise (Hero Arts), Paper Bag (Lawn Fawn), Floor to Ceiling Patterned Paper (MFT)

Dies: Movie Icons (MFT)

Cheers

Karren

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Blue Leaves

Here I am back again - two days in a row - that must be a record!  I made this card for the Color Hues blue and white challenge and the Inskpirational shades of blue challenge.

I was drawn to the blue squares in the Inskpirational visual prompt so after embossing and ink-blending my leaves, I decided to go with a postage theme and die-cut pieces with both a rectangle and a square postage edge die set.  I backed both pieces with a Midnight postage edge border and overlapped them for added interest.  I found the Herringbone Parquet panel already die-cut with my Midnight cardstock, so decided to go with a blue-on-blue theme.

Finally, I went looking for a pre-foiled sentiment and found this one which worked perfectly.  The postage images and the sentiment are popped up with foam tape to provide some separation from the background.

Thanks so much for visiting.

Products used:

Ink:  Uncharted Mariner, Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink

Cardstock: White, Midnight (C&9)

Dies: Postage Edge Rectangles, Postage Edge Squares (Spellbinders), Herringbone Parquet (The Greetery), Wonderful Sentiments hot foil and dies (Pink Fresh Studio)

Accessories: Leafy Splendor Embossing Folder and Stencils (Altenew), black hot foil

Cheers

Karren

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Bluebird

Hi and welcome!  I'm trying to spend more time in my craft room this year to try and bring back some of the joy in the hobby that disappeared when my son passed in 2019.  Today, I made a card for a few challenges, which I used to do every week, but now do so very rarely.  This card is for Addicted to Stamps & More (Any Occasion), Time Out Challenges Favourite Technique (stenciling and ink-blending), Krafty Chicks Masculine Challenge and Just Us Girls Stencil Challenge.

Any New Zealanders reading this post will hopefully recognise my inspiration for this Valentine card for my husband.  For those that don't recognise it, this is a play on one of the most popular potato chip brands (see photo of packet below).  He loves potato chips so buying this die and stencil set from Hero Arts was a no-brainer.  I die-cut the elements from white cardstock and used Distress Inks to colour them.  I went looking through my stash for a penguin and did some masking to remove the cocktail glass this one was holding up.  I then filled in the gap with a black Copic pen (although in hindsight I didn't need to because the chip covered it up anyway).

I took the "originals" from the chip pack and added the sentiment (although I wish I had white-embossed it now, but never mind).  

On the card base, I stenciled over the Geo Leaves stencil with Distress Grit Paste and once dry I assembled all the elements.

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps: Penguins In Paradise, Be Original (MFT), Peony Memories (The Ton)

Ink: Amalgam (Gina K), Scattered Straw, Fossilized Amber, Tea Dye, Blueprint Sketch, Chipped Sapphire, Fired Brick, Festive Berries Distress Inks

Cardstock: White, X-Press It

Dies: Snack Attack (Hero Arts), Penguins In Paradise (MFT)

Accessories: Geo Leaves stencil (SSS), Distress Grit Paste, Copics

Cheers

Karren

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Dramatic Strawberries

Hi, I'm here with my card for this week's challenge over at  Freshly Made Sketches where our sketch hostess is Jen Timko.  I decided to play with some NBUS dies from Honey Bee stamps and went with a dramatic dark green background to showcase them.

I die-cut the strawberries, leaves and flowers from various coloured cardstock then added some shading with a bit of ink-blending.  For the background I embossed a card panel with the Molded Frame embossing folder to mimic the additional layer in the sketch.  I then die-cut some embossed circles from the same green cardstock and adhered to the embossed panel.

After adding the strawberries, I went looking for a sentiment and found this one already foiled, so score!

Thanks for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Ink:  Green Opal, Lemon Ice, Mid Yellow, Dark Chocolate (Altenew)

Cardstock: Forest, Pomegranate (Spellbinders), Jalapeno Popper (MFT), Reindeer Moss (Altenew), Harvest Gold (PTI), White 

Dies:  Lovely Layers: Strawberries (Honey Bee Stamps), Embossed Circles (Kat Scrappiness), You Are Everything BetterPress (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Gold Hot Foil, Molded Frame Embossing Folder (Spellbinders)

Cheers

Karren

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Leafy Birthday

The team at Freshly Made Sketches is back with another sketch and this week our hostess is Judy Rozema.  This card was fairly simple for me to pull together as the leaves were already stamped, stenciled and die-cut.

I decided I wanted the big oval to be some form of foliage so I went through my One Note app and came across this set.  When I pulled it out, I found the already prepared images, so it was a no-brainer!  I chose matching cardstock which I embossed with the Leafy embossing folder.  I then stamped the sentiment onto a strip of white cardstock and matted the bottom with black.

Finally I finished with some black enamel dots and a single heart.

Thanks for visiting!  Please head over and check out the gorgeous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps: Friendship Leafy Cluster (SSS), Propagation Garden Sentiments (Spellbinders)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Mountain Mist, Lagoon (Altenew)

Cardstock: White, Black, Lagoon (Altenew)

Dies: Friendship Leafy Cluster (SSS)

Accessories: Friendship Leafy Cluster Stencils (SSS), Leafy Embossing Folder (Spellbinders), Essential Black & White Enamel Dots (Altenew)

Cheers

Karren

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Coral Poinsettia

Hi and welcome to our first challenge of 2026 over at Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess this week is Amy O'Neill.  Despite making hardly any Christmas cards in the lead-up to Christmas, I decided to make a Christmas card in January - go figure!

I started with a kraft panel on a white card base onto which I stamped the sentiment before embossing with the Subtle EF.  I then stamped a background stamp using white ink onto Oceanside cardstock and die-cut it with a torn edges die.  I also die-cut a small strip of Coral cardstock as a border.

The flowers and leaves were die-cut with light and darker cardstocks and adhered together.  I then went over the edges with some Distress Grit Paste to mimic snow.  I finished with some yellow Nuvo Drops for the flower centres.  I used the leftover elements for the inside of the card.

Thanks so much for visiting.  Please check out the fabulous cards made by the design team.

Products used:

Stamps: Christmas Background (MFT), Poinsettia Bouquets (WPlus9)

Ink: Unicorn White (Hero Arts), Versafine Onyx Black, Canyon Clay, Eucalyptus (Altenew)

Cardstock: Kraft, White, Oceanside, Sage, Coral (Spellbinders), Coral Crush (MFT), Lagoon (Altenew)

Dies: Torn Edges (MFT), Seasonal Sketch (Tim Holtz)

Accessories: Distress Grit Paste, Dandelion Yellow Nuvo Drops, Subtle EF.

Cheers

Karren

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White Poinsettia

Hi and welcome!  It's New Year's Day here in New Zealand and it's raining so a perfect time to get into the craft room just for fun.  For the first time in I don't know how long, I made a card for a couple of challenges.  I made a Clean and Simple card for the Addicted to CAS - Christmas challenge and as soon as I saw the inspiration photo at The Card Concept I was immediately drawn to the white and the glass in the kitchen so I drew on that inspiration for this card

I went with a white on white card with little touches of gold.  I hot-foiled the brushstroke stripe onto the card base and then hot-foiled a sentiment using the same gold foil.   I die-cut the sentiment and stacked it three deep so it stood out from the card base.

The flower and leaves were die-cut from vellum and white brushed metallic cardstock.  The glass I was inspired by is created using the "see-through" top layer of the die-cut and the vellum base layer.  After adhering the two elements together I added some tiny gold pearls to the centre.  I didn't add any other embellishments.

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Cardstock: White, Vellum, Brushed Metallic Antique Assortment (Spellbinders)

Dies: Seasonal Sketch (Tim Holtz), Foiled Brushstrokes & Stripes, Glimmery Christmas Flora (Spellbinders)

Accessories: Gold Hot Foil, Pastel Pearl Stickers (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers

Karren

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Edited to Add: This card got a shout-out at The Card Concept and Addicted to CAS.