Viva la Verve Trio

I spent a little time this week getting caught up on this month's Viva la Verve sketches. I managed to get April's first three sketches done, leaving me with one more to do over the weekend.

For my card for week one’s sketch, I was going for a masculine look. With that in mind, I kept the design pretty clean and simple.

I used both sides of a piece of kraft patterned papers to make the panels for the cardfront. The patterns have a kind of distressed look that I thought would work nicely for a masculine design. I layered each piece on a contrasting red mat before setting them on the teal card base. I machine stitched around one of the panels, but probably should have done that for both for a consistent look . . .

I stamped the “may all your dreams come true” sentiment from Verve’s Always on My Mind stamp set off–center on a cream panel in black ink, then stamped the hanging star image to the right of the words. The string attached to the star wasn’t long enough to extend to the top of the panel, so I used a fine-tipped black marker to extend it. I colored the star a gold-ish color, then added a little clear glitter over top. A little, teeny tiny bit of glitter’s okay on a masculine card, right?

Materials Used:
Always on My Mind stamp set (Verve Stamps); Taken with Teal, Very Vanilla cardstock (Stampin’ Up!); Kraft Funday designer paper (My Mind’s Eye); marker (Copic); circle dies (Spellbinders); clear Stardust pen (Sakura); sewing machine

Here’s my card for week two’s sketch. This card is going to a colleague of my dad’s as a get well card, so I picked a cheery red and yellow color combination.

I mixed and matched two different patterns from an older Lily Bee Design paper pad for the panels on the cardfront. I used a busier floral print for the trio of panels in the background and a simpler dotted one for the panel in front. When sketches have a bunch of panels like this, I usually have a hard time getting them sized and matched up evenly, but it seemed to happen pretty easily on this card.

I used the “hugs and smiles” sentiment from the Kind Words set as the focal image. It’s stamped in red ink on a cream oval. I added one of the flower images from the Wishful Elegance set to fill in the empty space at the top of the panel. I colored the petals with Copic markers to match the card’s red and yellow color scheme and placed a pretty self-adhesive pearl at the center.

Materials Used:
Kind Words and Wishful Elegance stamp sets (Verve Stamps); Memento Rhubarb Stalk ink (Tsukineko); markers (Copic); Very Vanilla, So Saffron, and Riding Hood Red cardstock, So Saffron grosgrain ribbon (Stampin’ Up!); This and That Tiny Tablet (Lily Bee Design); oval dies (Spellbinders); self-adhesive pearl (Recollections); foam tape

This one's for week three's sketch. I made another masculine card, this time for a birthday.

I used the balloon pair from the Birthday Bash as my focal image. I colored the balloons with Copic markers, cut them out, and attached them to a kraft panel with foam tape. The panel's layered on a rust mat, then set on a fun patterned paper panel.

For the two side panels, I used strips of gold cardstock. I accented the end of each strip with a pair of copper brads. The set's birthday sentiment is stamped in brown on the lower strip. I ended up leaving off the embellishment on the panel because of the placement of the balloon images, but I think the layout still works without it.

Materials Used:
Birthday Bash stamp set (Verve); Crumb Cake cardstock (Stampin' Up!); Ocean Tides cardstock (Papertrey Ink); Sweet Corn and Pumpkin Spice cardstock (Gina K Designs); Away We Go 6x6 paper pad (My Mind's Eye); circle dies (Spellbinders); copper brads (Recollections); foam tape