Swimmingly for Freshly Made Sketches

This week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge gave me the opportunity to use up some of my By the Shore Designer Series Paper and to ink up the sentiment from the Seaside Shore stamp set.  You know I get super-jazzed about amazing color combinations, right?  Well, this paper has hit the jackpot on beautiful colors – Dapper Denim, Calypso Coral, Mint Macaron and Very Vanilla.  Hello!  Love it!  Here’s my card:

And here’s the banner for Amy O’Neill’s super-simple and super-versatile sketch for this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge that inspired my card:

Tips, Tricks and Reminders

• I’m Shore You Need This.  The Seaside Shore stamp set has lots of great images and two great sentiments.  It’s a fun set for anyone who lives near water or wants to live near water.  Let me be 100% honest with you, though – this card is all about the paper.  The sentiment might take up 21.348% of the card front, but the two panels of By the Shore Designer Series Paper are what make this simple card shine.  I love, love, love the waves of Dapper Denim on the background page (the collection also has a piece of Calypso Coral waves) and the adorable fish that seem to just be minding their own business.  What a great stack with versatility for almost any occasion.
  

  By the Shore Designer Series Paper, Stampin’ Up!

• Oval vs. Circle.  You know I love circles, right?  Sure, I could have used a circle to crop this sentiment, but I wanted to mix it up a bit and give my Layering Ovals Framelits a go.  Yippee!  I like how much white space (errr….uh….vanilla space) is left on either side of the sentiment when the oval is used.  While I love the fish, there are quite a few of them, so the white/vanilla space helps to separate the sentiment from the busy background a bit.  What a great way to say “hope things calm down for you a bit” – than with a fun card with the right touch of open, clean vanilla space?  If you want to see all the shapes and sizes of the Layering Ovals, Circles and Squares, click here.
• Nautical Color Combination.  This paper gave me all the colors I needed to make a perfectly balanced card.  While the paper also includes Soft Sky, it’s not prominent on these patterns.  If you like this color combination as much as I do, you’ll want make sure you save this:

Stamp Sets:  Seaside Shore  Papers:  By the Shore Designer Series Paper, Calypso Coral, Very Vanilla  Inks:  Dapper Denim  Accessories:  Layering Ovals Framelits Dies, Stampin’ Dimensionals

Seaside Shore Clear-Mount Stamp Set – 141625

Price: $21.00

By The Shore Designer Series Paper – 141640

Price: $11.00

Layering Ovals Framelits Dies – 141706

Price: $35.00

Dapper Denim Classic Stampin’ Pad – 141394

Price: $6.50

Calypso Coral 8-1/2″ X 11″ Cardstock – 122925

Price: $8.00

Very Vanilla 8-1/2″ X 11″ Cardstock – 101650

Price: $9.00

Supply List

I hope you’ll pop over to the Freshly Made Sketches site to see the cards by the design team members and to play along with this week’s challenge.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Brian