Freshly Made Sketches #400!

I'm so happy to be playing along with the 400th sketch on Freshly Made Sketches this week!  In 2019, my challenge participation has been few & far between, but for years, this has been one of my favourite challenges.  (Scroll down to see the first time I used this sketch for their 100th challenge!)  *I am a day late in playing along with Inspired By, but I used it as my theme inspiration.  Here's what I came up with:

This Freshly Made sketch was their first ever challenge sketch, and also their 100th!  I knew when I saw it that I'd used it before, so after a little blog searching, I found my entry to the Freshly Made Sketches 100th challenge - here it is from August 23rd, 2013:

Stamp sets are The Greetery.

Anniversary card for Inspired By

Oh, it's been so long since I participated in a challenge!  I am very happy to be playing along with this week's Inspired By challenge, which is a box of decadent chocolate covered strawberries.  I was kind of trying to go with the colours... but veered off a little, so I'm mostly working with the layout, as well as the sketch that Laurel provided (if you follow Inspired By on facebook, she gives us a weekly sketch!).  It also just happens to be our 25th anniversary in a couple of weeks, so this is going to be the card for my hubby:

My niece gave me this lovely Studio Katia background die - and it was perfect for the challenge.  I used the Charlotte papers from CTMH, and cut the die in about 5 of the papers to get the look.  I die cut some hearts and mounted them and the sentiment strip with pop dots.

Inspired By All The Little Things #80

I am so happy to be playing along with the Inspired By All The Little Things challenge!  I was on the original Design Team when Lesley started the challenge a couple of years ago - and it was a wonderful team to be a part of!  There is talent galore, and plenty of inspiration to be found.  I was inspired by the colours, the birdhouse, that gold 'hello' on the wall and the overall shabby chic feel of the photo.

 I used a Teresa Collins paper pad called "Summer Stories", and dug out an old CTMH stamp set I had for the birdhouse.  I sewed a line of zigzag stitching with some metallic gold thread across the bottom, and die cut the word hello with an Avery Elle die.  The gumdrops are from Your Next Stamp.  I took another photo in some warmer lighting to try and show the gold cardstock a little better - the actual colour of the card is somewhere between the two photos!

Freshly Made & Inspired By

I'm playing with a couple of challenges today, as I needed a card for my niece's birthday later this week.  I've used the Freshly Made Sketch for this week, along with the inspiration photo from Inspired By All The Little Things (love this!):

So excited to play along with Inspired By - I miss being on the team!  Patterned papers are Dreamin' by CTMH; Sentiment is Verve; Coffee cup die is Memory Box.

Inspired By All The Little Things #61 with Sue Berkley

I am hosting this week over on the Inspired By All The Little Things blog, and I chose this amazing photo of a windowbox overflowing with gorgeous flowers.  The vibrant colours really caught me:

I pulled out some of my Art Impressions watercolour stamps, and with a combo of Marvy & Tombow markers, I painted up my scene, and gave it a melon coloured wash as a background to mimic the photo.  Here's what I came up with:

My dear friend, Sue Berkley is my guest designer this week!  We met on the One Crazy Stamper design team several years ago, and have been lucky enough to have a bunch of crafty days together at crops and working trade shows.  Head on over to the Inspired By blog to see what Sue & the Design Team have come up with this week.

*This is my last month co-hosting on the Inspired By Blog!  I've been working on the challenge since Lesley started it up a year and a half ago - and have been blown away by the amazing talent of our design team & my fellow hosts.  They inspire me every week with their wonderful creations, and have been a great group of ladies to work with.  I've changed jobs this year, and increased my work hours, so have had to scale back on my commitments, but I hope to play along with the challenge next year as a participant whenever I can.

The challenge is open until next Friday at noon - hope you can join us!

Inspired By All The Little Things #57

I am the hostess this week over on the Inspired By All The Little Things blog!  Here is this week's inspiration photo:

I just adore the colours in this photo, and we are right in the middle of tulip season here north of the border.  I went with the pretty Rainbow Plaid papers from Lawn Fawn, and a really old floral stamp set from my days as a Close To My Heart rep!  The sentiment and die are from Verve.

I have a former teammate of mine, Shari MacLaughlin as my Guest Designer this week - and she has some mad colouring skills that you're going to want to check out.  You can see what Shari and the Design Team have come up with based on the photo, over on the blog.  Laurel Seabrook is a special guest this week as well.  I hope you'll have time to play along!

Inspired By All The Little Things #52

It's April showers time (oh, did we have a downpour today!) so I've picked a very apropo photo as the inspiration for Inspired By All the Little Things this week.  I am the hostess for this week's challenge, and I have invited my Ai Design teammate Renee Matarese to be my Guest Designer!  Renee does such amazing, unique cards, always thinking outside the box, and she has a real flair for masculine cards, too!  Here is this week's photo that we worked from:

 Back in my clothing designer days, I lived in New York for a few years - so I loved this photo, with her glam raincoat & boots, and the rainy NY skyline behind her.  My inclination was to do something with a bit of a chic flavour to it... but when I really looked at the photo, I got kind of fixated on the taxi behind her!  I knew that I had this great taxi-printed paper, and decided to do something a little more fun & lighthearted.  Plus, my son graduated from University this week and has headed off to Europe to travel, and I felt like making more of a motivational card.  So here's what I came up with:

Inspired By All The Little Things 50th post!

We are celebrating over on the Inspired By All The Little Things blog this week - it is our 50th post!  The Hosts & Design Team are each inviting a Guest Designer to play along, so the inspiration over on the blog is quite something - be sure to check it out.  We would love to have you play along with us, as well.  Leigh found the pretty inspiration photo, so I used my Art Impressions watercolor stamps to make a heart shaped wreath to go with the anniversary theme:

I loved the pretty colours in the photo, and of course the flowers... and added an organdy bow and some sequins to reflect the gauzy fabric and the twinkling lights.  I have asked the amazing Sharon Caudle from Gramma's House of Cards to be my guest designer - you can see her creation here.  We hope you'll have time to play along with our challenge!

Inspired By All The Little Things #48

Welcome to another week of Inspired By All The Little Things!  I am the challenge hostess this week, and have chosen a dreamy night sky photo as our inspiration.  I had a great time trying a new combo of distress inks to give me a colourful sky, and then I used my white Sharpie fine point marker to add my stars.  I am using High Hopes Rubber Stamps on today's card - here is Blinky Owl, who I masked and then stamped the Tree Stump behind him:

The sky is a little darker/more navy-ish in real life, giving it a night sky look.  *I have invited the talented Leanne Elliott as my Guest Designer this week, so head on over to the blog to see what she & our talented Design Team have come up with.  Here is our inspiration photo:

Inspired By All The Little Things #44

It's my week as host over on the Inspired By All The Little Things blog!  I have chosen this carnival image with the sort-of magical twilight lighting.  I have a real "thing" for carnival images/art... so it's kind of funny that I didn't go that direction with my card!  Here's our image for the week:

 I also hadn't intended to do a sympathy card, but after creating the background, I wanted a sentiment that had a little more meaning to it.  I started by masking off the sun shape, and sponging the background with three different Distress Inks.  I chose the sentiment from Verve, and added some red twig die cuts where I sponged the tips with dark brown ink to deepen them a little like the edges of the Ferris Wheel in the photo.

My Guest Designer this week is my cyber-friend, Becca Whitham!  We are both former CTMH consultants, who started challenging each other to use up older papers that we've had kicking around for years.  She is a super talented lady, with a real knack for watercolouring on her cards.  Oh, and did I mention that she's a writer?  Check out her blog, and you can see the links to her books on her sidebar.

Cardstock is Bamboo, Black, White Daisy & Tulip - all CTMH; Stamp set is Inspire Hope by Verve; Hayden Twigs die by Memory Box; Distress Inks are Antique Linen, Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean & Frayed Burlap; Black Onyx Ink by Versafine.

Inspired By All The Little Things #40

I am the hostess over on the Inspired By All The Little Things challenge blog today, with my talented friend Donna Rudy as my guest designer.  Here is the inspiration photo that Donna picked to work with this week:

I was lucky enough to receive the newest Close To My Heart Cricut cartridge 'Flower Market' as a gift from my niece & sister this fall, and knew that there was a chrysanthemum diecut image on it.  I wasn't sure exactly how I'd use it, but ended up pulling out some distress inks, and used the negative from the die cut as a stencil.  I sponged a soft background, and added the pale pink diecut flower on top.  A little machine stitching and a sentiment from Verve finished it off:

Check out what Donna and the design team have to share with us this week over on the Inspired By blog, and be sure to link up your own creation!

Inspired By All The Little Things #37

I am the hostess this week at Inspired By All The Little Things - with my wonderful guest designer, Natalie Murdock!  Here is our inspiration photo:

 I knew that I had the perfect set from my days selling Close To My Heart - it's called Around The Block, and the houses have a bit of a gingerbread feel to them.  I white embossed the house onto watercolour paper, then tried to paint it to look like a gingerbread cookie.  I used my masking fluid to add some falling snow before I painted:

I hope you'll play along with us this week!  The design team have some gorgeous creations to share with you.  This will be our last challenge until the new year.

Inspired By All The Little Things #33

It's my week as hostess on the Inspired By All The Little Things blog, and I adore bottle brush trees for the holidays, so I couldn't resist choosing them for my inspiration photo this week!

 I wanted to do a little watercolouring this week...  I started out by white embossing some tree images that I have, and painted over them, but the effect wasn't what I wanted.  So - I tried again with a snowman image from Art Impressions, sticking with the watercolours, using all the pinks and greens in the photo.  I used some masking fluid to create the falling snow, and used a combo of Distress inks and Tombow markers mixed with water to make my scene.  I still need a fair bit of practice with my paintbrush, but overall I'm fairly happy with how he turned out!

 My guest this week is the very talented Myra Webb - head on over to the Inspired By blog to see what she & our fabulous Design Team have come up with.  Hope you'll play along!

Inspired By All The Little Things #28

It's my week as hostess on the Inspired By All The Little Things challenge blog!  I have the fabulous Marisa Ritzen as my Guest Designer this week - so be sure to head on over to the blog to see what she's created to share with us.  I really love this week's inspiration photo, but really struggled to figure out what I was creating!  I love the colours, the textures, the soft lighting - everything.  But do you think that I own a pumpkin stamp??  No.  Not on it's own... so I stretched my thinking a little bit, working more with the colour palette and the harvest feel of the photo.  Here's our inspiration:

And here's what I came up with:

 These are two of the Art Impressions Watercolour Sets, and I've used eleven different stamps to create my scene.  They're designed to work together, and I simply coloured directly onto the rubber stamps with my Marvy & Tombow markers, then softened the lines with a damp paintbrush.  I went back and painted in a few areas that needed a bit more colour, like the pumpkins, and added a few shadows and contrasting colours.  There was a bit of masking involved to stack all those veggies together!

Those apples and radishes aren't quite as neon looking in real life, they brightened up a bit during editing, but you get the idea.  We hope you'll join us at Inspired By this week - once again, the design team has come up with the most amazing projects, so we'd love to see what you create.  Marisa and I will both pick an "Inspiring Stand Out" from all the entries, and will post them on the blog next Saturday.

Patterned papers are Pathfinding, by Close To My Heart; and Odds & Ends by Cosmo Cricket;  Cardstock is Chocolate by Close To My Heart; Your Next Stamp Gumdrops; Marvy and Tombow Markers; Stamps are WC Series 3 Sets 1 and 2 by Art Impressions.

Inspired By All The Little Things #24

We're back!  After taking a summer break - Inspired By All The Little Things is back for a wonderful season of inspirational challenges.  We're welcoming Karren Johnson to our team of hostesses, and Wanda Cullen is debuting as one of our fabulous weekly designers - so welcome, ladies!  I am this week's hostess, so here is the photo I chose to inspire you:

It's no secret that I love coffee themed cards - so I can hardly wait to see what you come up with!  I also have a partner in crime when it comes to beverage themed cards, and that is my wonderful niece Allie Kostiuk, who I've invited to be my Guest Designer this week.  She is a very talented crafter (and chef! you should check out her blog here to see her cards and recipes), but sadly - we live several thousand miles apart so rarely get to craft together.  Thanks to the internet, we share projects and ideas back and forth.  This summer we spent a few days together at our family cottage and had a wee bit of crafty time:

 And here we are with my Mom, I'm going to say circa 1990... so we've been crafting together for a few years now (yes, that's me in the attractive neon shorts?)

And now for some cards!  I've pulled out my favourite Verve set "Coffee" along with their Coffee die, and made two cards:

Our challenge runs until Thursday, Sept. 22nd at midnight - be sure to check out all the inspiration over on the Inspired By blog, and link up your creation!

Patterned paper is Home Sweet Home by Carta Bella; Stamp set is Coffee by Verve; Coffee word die, Verve; Stitched Banner and Circle STAX dies by My Favorite Things; Ink is Rich Cocoa, by Memento; Distressed with Vintage Photo Distress ink by Ranger.  Copic Markers.

Inspired By #20

I'm up as hostess on the Inspired By All The Little Things blog today - with an inspiration photo that I adore!  I'm a camera buff, so when I came across this vintage turquoise camera, I thought it was fabulous!

My wonderful niece Allie sent me the stamp set from Close To My Heart a few months ago - "Life In Pictures" so this was the perfect opportunity to pull it out.  Then... a few weeks ago I was at the One Crazy Stamper store and spotted this vintage camera paper from Bella Blvd, that just happened to be grey & aqua??  It's like it was all meant to be :o)  So I made a collage style card:

I hope you'll find time to play along with us this week, the Design Team has some fabulous inspiration to share with you, and I have invited Melinda Everitt to be my Guest Designer.  I 'met' Melinda a few years ago when we were both CTMH consultants (she still is!) and we were on the Heart2heart Design Team together.  She has an artsy streak a mile wide, and comes up with the most beautiful artwork.  So head on over to the Inspired By blog to see what she has in store for us.  Have a great weekend!

I used the June - Week 1 sketch from Viva La Verve for my card:

Patterned papers are Let's Go! by Bella Blvd and Creative Basics, CTMH; Stamp set is Life in Pictures, Close To My Heart; Cardstock is Whisper, Black, Glacier & White Daisy, CTMH; Ink is Onyx Black by Versafine; Silver sequins are CTMH; Aqua sequins are Verve; Square STAX die, My Favorite Things.

Freshly Made Sketches & Inspired By

I made a card for two challenges this morning... I am using sketch #238 at Freshly Made Sketches, and am playing along with this week's Inspired By All the Little Things lovely teacup photo that Tracey McNeely chose:

I used one die and three Verve stamp sets, and decided to move the sentiment to the top corner to balance things off a little.  I popped up the entire white panel as well.  Here was our inspiration photo:

And the sketch:

Patterned papers are Bundle of Joy by Echo Park, and Wings by Close To My Heart; Stamp sets are Better Together, Sweet Treats and Coffee by Verve; Leafy Sprigs dies by Verve; Inks are Orchid Bouquet by Close To My Heart; Rich Cocoa by Memento & Onyx Black by Versafine;  Licorice Opaque Pearls by Close To My Heart; Flowers from my stash.

Inspired By #16

It's my week to be the hostess on the Inspired By All The Little Things challenge blog!  We're at challenge #16 already - how time flies :o)  I chose a vibrant, artsy photo of a bicycle, in what I'm assuming is a European city?  I'm looking forward to seeing how you all interpret this one... the colours, the graphic shapes, the bicycle?

 Here's what I came up with.  It's easy to mainly see the blue & green in the photo, but if you look closely, the bicycle is red & yellow - so I played up all four colours with some patterned papers (Christmas papers if you can believe it?) and a few sequins.  This is about as CAS as I get!

My guest this week is my wonderful friend, Cheri Bury - who I am lucky enough to be on two design teams with!  She has a wonderful flair for bright colours, and making really fun & interesting cards.  Head on over to the Inspired By blog to see what Cheri & the rest of the Design Team have come up with this week.  And don't forget to link up your creation - you have until Thursday the 26th.

Patterned papers are Peppermint Collection by Crate Paper and 25th and Pine by Basic Grey;  Cardstock is White Daisy, Close To My Heart & Blue by Bazzill; Ink is Onyx Black by Versafine; Sequins are Craft Medly; Banner Dies by Verve; Stamp sets are Just a Number and It's Your Day by Close To My Heart.

Inspired By #15

Jeanne Jachna is our hostess this week on Inspired By All the Little Things - with a very funky, retro inspiration photo!  I loved the direction that I saw most of the Design Team going... so I pulled out my Quatrefoil die from Taylored Expressions that I haven't used in a while, and whipped up a quick card to play along:

I ran the die through my Cuttlebug four times, using up scraps of cardstock, then randomly fit some of them back into my soft grey base.  I popped up the hello die cut with some pop dots, and added a black pearl.  Done!
Cardstock is White Daisy,Whisper, Slate, Sunset, Sunflower & Black - all Close To My Heart.  Dies are Taylored Expressions & Avery Elle.