SD sketching | If The Glue Sticks…Embellish

Silhouette Sketch Cards 2

Posted on July 18, 2013 by debbrooner

This is round 2 of the cards I have made using sketches from the Silhouette Store. I am really getting to like these sketches. They are kind of like having a rubber stamp that can be made into any size. And they don’t take up space in my stamp drawer! I am still using the Amy Chomas pen holders (see this post: https://ifthegluesticks.com/2012/07/25/silhouette-ske…as-pen-holders/) and love them. I will say one thing however, while I ordered both the small holder and the large holder it is the large one that I use all the time. I can’t seem to find pens small enough to fit in the small holder. Something to think about.

This could have made up as a one layer card by stamping a border under the definition and using a bit of yellow stickles on the dandelions.

Dandelion Sketch #32314; Laughter Definition: Stampabilities Definitions

Okay, this card has it all. Sketched flowers, rubber stamping, distress ink, die cut banner, dimensional adhesive, and letterpress using an embossing folder. Gasp. I started out by sketching the floral motif and then used a Hero Arts shadow stamp to highlight the blossoms. It still looked like it needed something so I brayered the concave side of an embossing folder with distress ink and ran the panel through my Cuttlebug. Since I cut out my banner in white cardstock I was able to use the same ink for it that I had used for the background. When I placed the banner on the card I found that the background was showing through the word cutouts so I traced the banner on another piece of cardstock and inked it with the purple ink. That looked much better! I glued the bottom (purple) banner directly to the card and then used dimensionals to add the top banner. Lots of fun.

Flower Motifs: #43709; Banner Words-Life: #37895; Hero Arts Scalloped Solid; Paper Studio: Horizontal Script; Distress Inks; Pumice Stone, Ripe Persimmon, Dusty Concord, Shabby shutters.

I sketched these little guys and then stamped the dots on the blossoms. I like the wonky kind of look I get with this technique. Remember what I said about being able to make these any size? The original file for each flower was a little over eight inches. I scaled them down to an inch and a half.

Flower Sketches: #30091, 30092, 30093, 30094

These cheery dots just screamed “use the word ‘happy'” , so I did. Sketched dots, distress ink and rhinestones made a very fun panel. The nice thing about having the word happy on the outside of the card is that the inside can say “birthday’, “day”, etc. Very handy, especially for me as I never seem to have the right sentiment at the right time.

Polka Dot Sketch: #19374; Sentiment: 38773; Distress Inks: Picked Raspberry, Dusty Concord, Ripe Persimmon, Shabby Shutters

And finally, this card. Am I happy happy happy with the white gel pen that I used to shadow the letters? No, no, no. This copy is for my portfolio so no one will receive a card this messy!

I typed the word “happy” in my Silhouette and then played with spacing of the letters until they touched. Using white cardstock letters and words is really a good idea. Just a bit of ink in the color you need and you have coordinated your card elements.

I used 3 different inks for the flowers and loved how they coordinated with some cardstock I had on hand. I used the middle value of the purple inks to edge the flower panel. It is not obvious but it does help give it a finished look.

Flower Sketches: 44160, 44161; Distress inks: Milled Lavender, Dusty Concord, Seedless Preserves

Silhouette Sketch Pens and Amy Chomas Pen Holders

Posted on July 25, 2012 by debbrooner

I decided to try the sketch pen feature the other day. I used the basic pen set that Silhouette sells but unfortunately there was not enough ink in them to do the background designs that I had picked out. Bummer. I purched a great tree sketch so I thought I’d just nip over to the store and get a small brown pen from Sihouette. Big problem- no brown to be found.

I had seen ads for Amy Chomas’ Pen and marker holders so I went to her sight to see if they were something I would want. I ended up getting both holders(one holds pens, the other is big enough for markers, so there is a size for everything) and have been really happy I did. The upside to these holders? I can now use Sharpies,gel pens, Pigma Microns- you name it. Since I can use full size pens I can sketch larger designs without running out of ink. It also means that I don’t have to stick with the very limited colors Silhouette offers. Take look at Amy’s blog and see what you think.

For the card above I used some cool gel pens called GellyRoll Gold. They come in a pack of 5 and have red, purple,blue, green, and olive. The neat thing about these pens is that they write both the color and gold together. I used the green and red ones on this card.I made a rectangle around both elements, hit the “line styles” button and picked a perforated line. It all sketched out perfectly. I added a white tab which I colored with the green pen, some black rhinestones to the middle of the flowers, and a punched strip on the left side. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder for the cards base and that was it. Pretty easy, actually.

Sketched Flowers: #1176; Dream Create Inspire: #1595; Cuttlebug Embossing Folder: Geometric Rings

For this card I just used a lattice background and the word, which I colored in after it was sketched. I found this lovely black feather in my stash and some gold rhinestones tha finished it up. I love the card base. It is gold on the front and blue on the back.

3 backgrounds: #28032; Imagine: #7787

Authentique Paper, 3 Sketches

Posted on April 13, 2012 by debbrooner

Since grey and yellow are so hot now I picked up this pad of cardstock. I found out, however, that the grey is more brown than black. I like it anyway!

I wanted to make 3 cards using 3 fferent weekly sketches. I enjoyed the challenge of each card as none of them were my usual style. They were good” stretchers”.

This first sketch is from Clean and Simple Stamping. I don’t usually try to make cards using circles but this one was very easy to do. I just drew a 4.25 x 5.5″ rectangle on my Silhouette workspace. I then drew a circle, sized it to fit my card and used the Offset button to make the second circle. After I had the size of the card figured out all I had to do for the flowers and the leaves was to pick the files I wanted and then size them to fit.

I have to apologize for the inferior stamping. The first stamping was not too good so I restamped it (easy to do with clear stamps), but it wasn’t much better. I could have stamped the sentiment on a different piece of paper to cover up the mess, but I thought that it would make the card too busy and it will go into my portfolio, so I left it as is.

leaf_spray_C01298_20387; 3d_flower_C01679_20509; 3d_flower_C01678_20509; 3d_cherry_blossom_C00798_31857

This sketch is from the Card Pattern Sketch. Again, I used my Silhouette to get the pieces the right size. Authentique has 2 punch-out pages to coördinate with their cardstock. I used the small argyle tag for the sentiment and added the pink ruler underneath it. I had cut out a pink and a brown flourish, not being sure which one I wanted to use. Neither one alone really made me happy but they looked very good layered. Yes the damask is sideways. This was my day for goofs.

flourish_C02801_1

The last sketch I used was this one from retro sketches. The flower was sketched with my Sil and a yellow pen (yes, the Silhouette also can draw). It was rather ironic because I had no intention of using a bird house on the card, but after layering the flower onto the card I decided it needed something else. There was a birdcage punch-out on the sheet, so I used it. So much for “I definitely won’t do…”

I added Glossy accents to the pink flowers on the top of the card and some really cute sparkly yellow dots to the pink band.

flower_C00881_2581

This last part is for those who are new to card making. When you are using a paper pad that is 6×6 you will also need some coordinating solid color cardstock to use for the card bases and any other embellishments you might like to make. You don’t want to get home and find you can’t finish your card because you don’t have all the right stuff.