2 Cards (Using Sketches) for You

And I made one of these cards using this week's sketch from 2 Sketches 4 You. This sketch isn't something I would have come up with on my own. It definitely stretched me a bit. Since square cards tend to be hard for me to do, I ended up adjusting the sketch to fit a standard-sized card. I think the sketch worked just fine in this format.

I just got a big tin of bright Prima flowers at my local Michaels and decided to look for color inspiration for this card in the tin. The vivid green flower caught my eye, so I pulled that out, along with a blue flower with greenish center. I decided to useTaken with Teal and Soft Sky (I am so going to miss this color!) along with Gable Green to coordinate with the flowers.

So that I could stamp the sentiment directly on the paper, I used Soft Sky patterned paper for the sentiment panel. The "celebrate" sentiment from Celebrate Everything fit perfectly on the panel. I added a bunch of Prima flowers that coordinated with the card's color scheme along the right corner of the panel. Each flower has a colored dome floral embellishment at the center.

For the panel along the left side of the card, I created a scalloped strip using the Threaded Water punch. Then I found this kind of coordinating American Crafts dotted ribbon. I didn't realize that the reverse side of the ribbon was a pretty green color that matches my card quite well (even though I tied the ribbon so you don't see it, I swear it does!)

Materials Used:

Celebrate Everything stamp set, Taken with Teal Classic ink, Taken with Teal, Soft Sky, and Gable Green cardstock, Soft Sky Prints Series designer paper, Crystal Effects (Stampin' Up!); ribbon (American Crafts); flowers (Prima); blue and green acrylic dome floral embellishments (Michaels); Threaded Water punch (Fiskars)

The second card uses Mary Jo's weekly sketch challenge. One of my very best friends from way back in junior high and high school is celebrating her birthday next week, so I needed to get a card in the mail to her today. It had to be pretty light on the embellishments so it would make it to her without getting eaten up by one of those nasty post office machines, so this is what I ended up sending out today.

I used Papertrey Ink's Piece of Cake and Birthday Basics stamp sets for the main image. Even though I don't particularly like chocolate cake myself, I really like the way brown and pink look together, so I went with a chocolate look here. The images are all stamped with pigment ink to get a richer look. I used a gold glitter pen to add some sparkle to the candle, too. I placed a small ribbon tab on the left side of the image, then attached the panel to the cardfront with dimensionals.

I kept the rest of the card pretty simple, with the only additional embellishments being a pair of brads to the cardfront and a scalloped strip (again made with the Threaded Water punch--love that thing!) where the patterned and solid papers meet.

I'm still hard at work on my final paper and I've written about 20 pages so far. I'm kind of unsure how I'm doing on the writing, so I think I'm going to ask my dad if he'll review it for me (if he ever answers the phone when I call . . .). He's usually pretty good at giving me feedback on stuff like this. He used to do this for me all the time in high school, but I haven't asked him to do this in many years. I'm pretty much a professional student and it's been a while since I've been this unsure about completing an assignment.

Materials Used:

Piece of Cake and Birthday Basics stamp sets (Papertrey Ink); Close to Cocoa and Regal Rose Craft inks, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, and Chocolate Chip cardstock, Close to Cocoa Prints Series designer paper, Regal Rose wide grosgrain ribbon, dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); brads (Making Memories); Threaded Water punch (Fiskars)