Blue Skies & Smooth Sailing Challenge

I decided to give card challenges another try.  This time a challenge over on Fusion caught my eye!

The beach colors are among my favorite combinations.  I decided to fuse the two options and this is the result . . .

 

I substituted blue fence boards which I sandpapered for a worn look for the two boards with the anchor and then used the three elements of the sketch to finalize the design.

Thanks for looking!

Flowery Card Sketch

My Card Crafts group is having a sketch swap for July.

I decided to go with blue and white and try out my new Martha Stewart punch.

I began by creating the "hello" using Microsoft Word and then trimmed it down and punched the edges with Martha Stewart's "Doily" edger.  I attached it to the blue cardstock with glue stick.


Next I tackled the flower by cutting a long strip of photo paper and edge punching it with my new Martha Stewart deep edge punch " Garden Trellis".  I recently had found a video for making flowers using border punches and wanted to see if I could make this one work.  I'm pleased with the result!  Of course I had to make my own changes, lol.  I attached the flower with a brad.


The butterflies were punched with Tonic's "Butterfly Multi-detail".  I detached the butterfly from the paper by snipping the top and bottom of the body.  I glued these on only by the body and folded the wings upwards.


I decided the ribbon would have been too much so I chose to leave it off.

Spring is in the Air

I liked the way yesterday's card turned out so I decided to make another version.

Again I chose the ribbons and brads to match the daisy paper.  This time I printed the words on vellum and punched them out in a tag shape.  I also punched out another tag from the card base cardstock and put the two together before attaching to the card.

On the inside I used a leftover piece of the daisy paper and punched the corners with Martha Stewart's corner punch (Double Loop ).  I punched another vellum tag and stamped the sentiment (Stampabilities) on it.  Lastly I glued all together.

Sketchy April

Card Crafts is having a sketch swap for April.  This is the an example of the sketch that we are to use.

I chose to use the same patterned paper as I did with a previous card but without the embossing.  After choosing the paper I picked out two ribbons and three brads that coordinated with the paper.

I used an Emagination tag punch, a Paper Studio round scallop punch and a Paper Studio daisy punch to make the tag portion of the card.  The basic tag was made out of the same color cardstock as the card base.  The scallop was made from glittery cardstock.  The daisy was made from the patterned paper.  I cut two, turned one slightly and glued everything together.

On the inside I attached a blue paper that I corner punched with Martha Stewart's corner punch (Double Loop).  I stamped a sentiment from Stampabilities.

Bloomin' Sketch

For a sketch challenge in Card Making International I made this card.

The patterned paper has been embossed with Cuttlebug's Swiss Dots embossing folder.  The center square on point is made on glittered cardstock and is glued on top of a light yellow ribbon which crosses the center of the patterned paper.  On top of the square is a flower I made out of the patterned paper (which is also embossed).

The flower instructions can be found on Valita's Designs & Fresh Folds.  The paper I used was not double sided so I cut pieces of the glittered cardstock to hide the outside edges underneath the flower folds.  I added leaves by folding some green paper in a similar manner and gluing in between the petals.  The center needed something so I glued a floral stamine (found in the bridal section of Hobby Lobby)in the center.

On the inside I used three scalloped circles cut out of the patterned paper and "tied" them together.  The border was created with the EKSuccess punch called "Daisy Chain".

This is the "sketch" that inspired the card.

Sketchy Geometric

Here is a sketch card I did for March.  It is a swap for Card Crafts.  This time I let the patterned paper be my inspiration.

The card base is cardstock and the patterned paper has been cut and glued to the base.  The yellow cardstock with patterned paper has been attached to the base by four flower brads.

I used some more brown and a yellow flower to cover the brads on the inside.  I stamped a message and adorned it with some scraps of the patterned paper.

Swap Fest 3

Here's a sketch swap card from Lynda in Oklahoma.

The center with the fox has been built up in 3D layers.  The orange "dots" are faux jewels.

Sketch in Bloom

Last November I did a sketch swap with Australia through my card group (Card Crafts).  Again I decided to go with a Southwest flavor.  I live in the desert and in the Spring the wildflowers can be gorgeous, especially if we had any rain in the winter.  Since Australia's seasons are the opposite of ours I thought it would be fun to do a Spring card in November!

 

The sketch I drew my inspiration from is shown below.

  

I traced a butterfly shape around the printed words, cut them out and attached them to the card only by the body so that it was "3D".  

The Organ Mountains in the picture are part of the Rocky Mountain chain.  I can see them out of my kitchen windows in the winter (leaves are off the tree in front of the window ;-).  Right now I can see snow on the Organs!!!

The mountaintops are said to look like the pipes of an organ and that's where the name comes from.

 

And when the setting sun shines on them...gorgeous!

Sketchy Snow

 February's sketch swap for Card Crafts turned into another snow card.  I think I have snow on the brain since so much of the country lies blanked by continuous snowstorms.  My swap partner lives in Israel, so I hope she enjoys a change of weather...so to speak ;-)

Since a sketch card doesn't have to be done exactly like the sketch, you are free to improvise.  I decided to forgo the bird and make my central theme a snowflake.  The buttons on the sketch became snowflake ornaments.

I used a piece of glossy banner paper and embossed it with Cuttlebug's "Snowflakes" embossing folder.  After attaching this to the card front I then attached the blue strip of paper to the middle.  This paper was punched along each edge with Martha Stewart's "Snow Flurry" corner and border punch set.

In the center I stacked two differently sized punched scallops with Paper Studio punches.  On top of the two scallops I glued a single embossed snowflake made in the same way as the other embossed paper.  The snowflake ornaments were glued on last and pressed overnight to assure good adhesion.

For the inside I scanned a piece of "snow flurry" embossed glossy banner paper with high contrast.  I imported the scan into Microsoft Word and added the greeting.

Sketchy Christmas

If you haven't tried a card sketch yet you don't know what you are missing!  A card sketch is just that...a generalized sketch to be used as a jumping off point for your imagination.  You can make changes to the elements as long as your card resembles the sketch.  One of my card groups (Card Crafts) had a swap based on this sketch.

How you decorate and what theme you use are completely up to you.  Since it was close to Christmas I used that for my theme.

I cut the circle first and then used my Planet Punch template to line up the tree punch (Double Framed Christmas Tree) from All Night Media.  The greeting was done in Microsoft Word and the center piece for the circle was made in Kaleidoscope Kreator from a picture of Christmas "lamps".  A couple small punched trees  and two  stripes complete the card front. 

On the inside I added a triangle with a punch out to make a place to write a personal message.

There are many sources for card sketches and here are a few...
   Card Sketch a Day 
   Car Positioning Systems  
   Card Patterns 
   Creatively Yours 
   Inspirational Card Sketches 
   Card Positioning System 
   My Sketch World