Freshly Made Sketches #757

Jen Mitchell is our sketch designer this week at Freshly Made Sketches #757!  Oh, were the crafty wheels turning...

... but you won't believe where the wheel stopped...

Will it pass the 'smell test?'  Are you team sardine?  Mine are in mustard today! lol

The Stamp Market: Sardines and Sardine Greetings.

There are endless ideas for that cute little rectangle - hope you join us!

=] Michele

The Paper Players #806

Ann has a glorious theme for us at The Paper Players #806!  Take a looky loo at this:

 

Between LeAnne, Christy, and Stef I found all the inspiration I needed

to pull out a stencil and that little set from The Greetery that gets at

least one playtime each year since it was gifted to me!

Sing along if you can hear America the Beautiful in my card today!

Purple 'mountains' and amber waves of grain make up my farmland scene.

The stencil I used is from MFT an oldie called Drifts and Hills.

The farmhouse and barn were ready-stamped from a past session -

I just blended some grey ink over to make them look silhouetted in my bright scene.

Perfect timing as I'm hearing the dryer calling my name!  Hope you've had a beautiful start to your week!

=] Michele

Happy World Card Making Day!!

Oh, happy daaaaay, my card-making friends!!  My love of pie and cards came together today!  Time Out #323 made it happen with a LOT of help from Carrie and the additional dies from her Altenew Sweet Harvest set of dies and embossing folder!

My Pick 2 turned into 3: Gingham, Baking, and Apple!

Who are YOU playing cards with this WCMD?

=] Michele

One card - three challenges!

This never happens!  I started to make a card for The Paper Players #805 using Jaydee's fun sketch when I spied with my little eye the 'leftover' panel from that fabulous Maple tree trunk that I cut at Carrie's house.  If you know me at all, I really try to use the negatives from die cuts and will specifically arrange a die thinking ahead to how I might use it later... later happened today!

I first cut the panel down using my old faithful Wonky Rectangle die from MFT.

Then, I masked my tree using one of my Penny Black essential masks and added a moon in Fossilized Amber ink blended Black Soot over the rest of the panel and backed it to make the tree trunk black!

I reached for a favorite Halloween die set from SSS: Big Bat - but just used the

sentiment - using the second color in Color Hues #142: burnt red.

Just us Girls #843 is asking for Halloween dies! This Bat Trio from SSS spooks me-

and the 'hey, boo' is my go-to for my granddaughter, Lola.

Nothing left to do but give it all a spooky spritz of TH Mica spray and voila!

ONE card - THREE challenges done and dusted!

                                                            

Thanks, Carol!

I have spent a great deal of time in my studio playing cards with all of those wonderful Altenew sets Carrie sent me home with... I'll be sharing those soon, I promise.  

Until then, we're still blooming butterflies but the weather is making it pretty hard on these delicate little friends of ours.  The sun is shining today, and I hope it warms up enough for their wings to strengthen for that long flight to Mexico!

Have a great weekend my friends!

=] Michele

Freshly Made Sketches #756

Kim has a fabulous design for Freshly Made Sketches #756!  Tell me, does this get your creative juices flowing?

When it comes to choosing what goes into that main box, I wanted

to pay homage to the one flower in my porch pot that never lets me down:

the Geranium!  Oh, the Coleus are still going strong, too - hey, why haven't I

ever seen a stamp featuring those?  I digress... here's my card:

Another SB Betterpress-ed sentiment from Yana pressed in brown

along with lots of Fall-ish colors bring those deep reds to life, right?

HoneyBee's Burlap EF always does the trick for texture.

Okay, that's all folks except to invite you to COME PLAY! And if you want 

even better inspiration, go see what Kim and the DT have to offer - they

always knock my socks off!

=] Michele

My Sunday shenanigans!

Sunday afternoon in my studio was a delight - tunes on YouTube, sun outside my window, my hubby doing a little yard work, and chicken roasting for dinner!  Does it get any better?  

Here are the cards I made... first a few made with another wonderful borrowed Altenew set from Carrie: Sulfur Cosmos!

Stamped with Obsidian ink, and stenciled with these inks:

Then a bit of extra details using Prismacolor pencils...

    

When I reached for those pencils, I found a pad of Strathmore Toned Gray paper.

Then the ol' grey-lovin' brain kicked in...

... which turned into this...

A 5x7" card with oyster grey base, Prairie Grass postage frame,

and an embossed panel [SB Summertime Waves] and an

Altenew Press plate set for the sentiment.

Last but not least, this fabulous moodboard from Inspirational #377 pulled on my heartstrings...

See if you can find the cupcake that was the inspiration for my card!

Okay.  Granted my sunflower is not as orange - but you'll forgive me, right?

A bit of texture from Kristina's Finishing Touches from Concord & 9th, some white metallic splatters, and a Betterpress-ed sentiment and I'm good to go!

Hope you had a fantastic weekend!

=] Michele

Craft Roulette #338 with Therese!

My sweet friend Therese was the guest designer on Craft Roulette on Friday evening but as much as I wanted to go live with her and Mary Gunn FUNN, it just didn't work out.  However, I watched the replay and couldn't wait to get my hands on those fun parameters... here they are just in case YOU want to play, too!

I hadn't heard of a Joyfold card - thank goodness there were many beautiful renditions available on YouTube!

Her Element is: starts with K - I used a much-loved embossing folder to KNIT my card front!

Dusty Hues are my favorite Colors - this time I reached for Gina K's Dark Sage cardstock from my trip to Wisconsin with Sue, Marcia and Bobby many years ago!

Torn Paper is the Random spin... do any of you have this old tool in your supplies:

It worked its charm to create my 'torn edge' ruffle!

Okay!!  Ready to see my card?

My brilliant friend Donna Mikasa featured an embossed triangle tree

for her 'seconds' at Freshly Made Sketch this week - 

I just had to CASE it!  Mine was cut using a very old triangle die set from Scrapbook.com that was a free gift w/purchase.  I've embossed it

using a SSS Holiday Greenery EF.

And the inside was easy peasey by just adding a slip of dsp

and a Betterpress-ed sentiment!

Thanks so much, Therese and Mary - I had a blast creating my card!

=] Michele