Freshly Made Sketches #220

Happy Monday, everyone! I'm playing along today with Freshly Made Sketches, sketch #220. A friend introduced me to this blog, and it's quickly become one of my go-to sites for inspiration. I think coming up with a layout and design is one of the hardest parts of cardmaking, so I love that this site provides different ideas. Here's this week's sketch:

I thought about this for a few days before diving in. I thought about snowflakes, balloons, and flowers for the top left corner. And then I remembered some new craft goodies (paper, die cuts, stamps, and inks) I received as a gift, and I wanted to incorporate those into this project. Here's the final card - more details below.

It's a little bit different than the sketch, but I think it still works with the focus in the top left corner and sentiment to the right.

I really LOVED that leaf paper (one of my new goodies!), so that was my starting point for this design. It's so clean and simple, and gives a few different colors to use with green, yellow, and red. I decided to use them all with the flower die-cuts and leaves.

The flower dies are unique because they help add some dimension to the card. Part of the petals actually lift up, giving some added interest. I think it's really neat that the flower isn't completely flat on the card, but comes up off the card. Here's a better view where you can see the petals lifted up off the card a bit...

I think anyone who receives a card with these flowers just couldn't help but touch the petals! The flowers are the focus point, and then it comes with a little more fun with petals coming off the card. So fun!

I really wanted the focus to be the leaf paper and the die cuts, so I left the rest of the card simple with the black paper, white ink, and sentiment that isn't too big or distracting. The small pearls and sequins are also good, subtle embellishments.

This was a fun sketch to try, and there will be more Freshly Made Sketches posts to come!

Materials

Paper - white card, black card stock, green paper (Hobby Lobby); yellow envelope (Paper Source); leaf background paper, red paper, yellow paper (Stampin' Up)

Dies - Botanical Builder framelits dies (Stampin' Up)

Stamps - Beautiful Butterflies (Papertrey Ink)

Embellishments - clear sequins (Pretty Pink Posh), small pearls (Hobby Lobby)