This week’s challenge from Freshly Made Sketches had me giddy. The nerdy, Type-A side of me loves a good block pattern – each of the differently-sized blocks fits perfectly inside the layout. The carefree, Type-B side of me enjoyed the freedom to create whatever I wanted inside each of these blocks. Even with that freedom to mix it up, I chose to keep a pleasant consistency between panels. Here’s my card:
And here’s Kim Singdahlsen’s Freshly Made Sketches banner that inspired my card:
Tips, Tricks and Reminders
- Illusion. While I was making this card, I wasn’t having very good luck with evenly gluing down the cropped pieces of paper. After several failed attempts, I decided to simply lay thin strips of Early Espresso over a single panel of Season of Cheer Designer Series Paper to create the illusion of separate panels. Voila! The magic of illusion.
- Color it In. I stamped this oak leaf from Vintage Leaves in Early Espresso on the Delightful Dijon pattern from Season of Cheer Designer Series Paper. I thought the leaf would really stand out on the paper, but it wasn’t highlighted enough. I grabbed my Delightful Dijon Stampin’ Write Marker and colored in the leaf – YES! Coloring over the white space in the paper’s pattern helped this leaf to really stand out. Looking at the card, it’s hard to believe this leaf isn’t cropped out and placed over the paper.
- Fall Color Inspiration. This Delightful Dijon and Whisper White piece of Season of Cheer Designer Series Paper was the starting point for my card. The deep Early Espresso provides a great contrast to Delightful Dijon, highlighting its richness. If you like this color combination, too, feel free to save this:
Stamp Sets: Vintage Leaves Papers: Season of Cheer Designer Series Paper, Delightful Dijon, Early Espresso Inks: Early Espresso, Stampin’ Write Marker (Delightful Dijon) Accessories: Seasonal Frame Thinlits Dies, Stampin’ Dimensionals
I hope you’ll pop over to Freshly Made Sketches to see the cards by the design team members and to play along with this week’s challenge.
Thanks for stopping by today!
Brian
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Love your take on the sketch Brian! This sketch made me really excited too. The thin strips over the top are genius. I too struggled to get them lined up – however I am not as smart as you to think of such a solution. Great technique.
Oh my goodness Brian, I would never have thought of this wonderful-made easy way to do this! Great Job!!!
Whenever you post your cards, I like to study your creation first, then move on to reading your narrative. So…At first glance, and without reading up on your “how I did it”, I was trying to figure out how you were able to stamp and crop out that leaf like you did. My head was spinning in circles, until aha! I READ how you created that illusion. Certainly nerdy, possibly teetering on genius. 😉
So clever Brian, you always think “outside the box”!
Beautiful how you split up the leaf for a whole new effect!
Lovely!
O.K., you made my day. Love how you made the frames for dividing up the page. Way. To. Go. Will try this very soon!
Genius putting the framing on top……it drove me crazy trying to get it even!
You clever little boy! VERY nice, very subtle yet stands out–how can that be? Beautiful!
So clever! What would we ever do without clever folks like you! We’d go insane most likely! 🙂
Wonderful card!
I love this look! You had me fooled…until I read that the leaf was not cropped!
Brian – you are such an imp! LOL When I saw the card my reaction after beautiful was “how the heck did he get those three pieces of DSP lined up so perfectly on that background piece?”. I want you to know that I think it’s fabulous that you are willing to share your “little secrets” with all of us. What would we ever do without you? Huge hugs!
Love it! Thanks for showing!
“It’s hard to believe this leaf isn’t cropped out and placed over the paper.” Well, maybe it is my monitor, but it seems this leaf is just so realistic that I just saw it on our walk about an hour ago! I can almost hear the crunch of the leaf if I walked on it! Then, the way you laid the strips of early espresso – it looks like I am looking out the windows of our Craftsman Bungalow house at oak leaves floating down from the tree! I don’t think you can get any more picturesque than this card!
Genius! I always struggle with placing pieces just so. This is great!
YOU have made it so difficult to resist this bundle! This card tipped me over the edge!
Clever clever!! Sure fooled me I thought for sure the leaf was cropped. Color is wonderful and early expresso pieces look fantastic. : )
I love the way you’ve kept the consistency between panels. It was a great sketch and made my itch to do it too. Fantastic card and great colour combination!
Love your card! Do you by any chance have any DSP swatches from the Christmas Catalog left that I could purchase, I thought I ordered them but I guess I didn’t.
I love the look of the leaf stamped across the different panels. I had to give it a double take when I read how you did it! And I will definitely remember your little trick to create the illusion of different panels! I often obsess to a ridiculous degree when I have to make a card like this! Thanks for playing along with us at Freshly Made Sketches!
I loved reading about how this fab card came together. You are very creative!
Oh goodness this card is just gorgeous! I love these colours – so autumn-y and so yummy! Thanks for joining us at FMS this week!
I thought “hmm, here we go again with the cutting and snipping…” only to find out you didn’t! That makes this card mush more achievable for me as a non-snipper 😉 (I just struggle a bit with keeping the edges crisp and not having them curl on me?!)
Lovely card, and I even have all the elements required to make it 🙂