Freshly Made Sketches #561

Eleventh Hour. Of the Eleventh Day. Of the Eleventh Month. Happy Veteran's Day. 

I'm recovering from some minor foot surgery and have had plenty of time to surf and see others making beautiful poppy cards. I wanted to do one too! Also, as I was having some trouble sleeping last night I kept mulling over this week's sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and coming up a bit empty of ideas. 

Working in short sessions, I decided to just do the poppy, then managed to get it to fit the sketch. 

I glued crumpled tissue paper to white card stock and let it dry. Then I die cut the poppy from a set from Concord & 9th, colored with Copic markers, and finished with some light brushing of pearl ex powders. 

The inks, two background elements and greeting are from Gina K. It was hard to get a good picture of the texture the tissue, markers and pearl ex gave to the poppies with the gray #3 skies today, so it's a little bright.

Have a lovely day! 

Instagram inspiration to the rescue

 I have this beautiful eucalyptus paper and so do hundreds (or more) card makers. I don't know what it is, but it is just so pretty. That said, it's a very bold and busy pattern and I was having a hard time coming up with a good balance. 

I saw a card on Instagram by Mary Fish, @ stampinpretty and saved it to my favorites. I needed a card for a friend who had some procedures done, so I used her inspiration to get going. Then I made 3 more with the bits left with different greetings to put in my stash.

Paper from Hobby Lobby

Stamps Technique Tuesday

Die Momenta

Cardstock Gina K

Freshly Made Sketches 560

Here's this week's installment from Freshly Made Sketches. 

I'm trying to build back my stash of need-right-away cards. So I started with the theme in my mind of having a square wedding card. I really like the idea of splitting a large image apart that I've seen all over. I really like a bit bigger canvas for these larger images. More white space. Since I'm trying to get back to finding my style/groove again, I reflected on what hooked me to this craft more than 20 years ago. Heat embossing. Here you go! 

Stamps are from Concord & 9th, Technique Tuesday (sentiment).

Gold and white card stock. 

And here's the original sketch. 

On a more reflective note...

I've boxed up the majority of my stamp sets, a full set of ink pads, inks, gobs of random card stock and a mountain of other supplies. Wow. I can't tell you how good that feels. I don't know what to do with it all but it is freeing to simplify a bit. After 20 years some things just aren't feeling modern enough and I want to get some new things. I've completed my mini ink collection and matching card stock from Gina K Designs and that has really helped me get more focused. I like the matchy-matchy. My taste has surely changed and I'm continuing to find my place in all this again. If you got this far, thanks for looking. Have a great weekend!