Today on our blog we welcome Michelle Marks, who is going to show you how she used our Sketchy Challenge to design cards!

Happy Spring dear Canadian Scrapbooker readers…ummm…at least I’m hoping it’s spring somewhere in Canada by now because it sure hasn’t reached Nfld yet!

Michelle here today from Corner Brook, Nfld. Apparently I’m supposed to tell you a little about me so here goes. I’m a 47 year old mom to two “almost” grown kids, a daughter 21 years old and a son 19 years old. I am also spoiled wife to Rob, and this summer we will be celebrating our 25^th anniversary. Our home also houses a small zoo…one cat, one geriatric dog, two dwarf hamsters and some fish… plus a gazillion wild birds that empty my feeders faster than I can fill them. There’d be a lot more animals if my kids had their way but sometimes a momma just has to put her foot down! I’m also a fulltime RN in our local dialysis unit {I’d rather be home scrapping but alas, I must earn my keep}.

I have always been involved with some type of craft over the years, everything from quilting to painting to cross stitch to blah blah blah. Suffice to say I have tried my hand at a lot of crafts! I started scrapbooking about ten years ago and have been hooked ever since. I didn’t consider myself a card maker but when I looked at my online gallery, I thought, “Holy smokes! I DO make a lot of cards!”

I love to play along with the Sketchy Challenge here at CS, but this week I decided to try something a little different. With Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and my nephew’s birthday all soon approaching, I found myself in need of some cards. {See? This just proves I’m not really a card maker as I would have had a stash to pick from instead of scrambling at the last minute!}. I figured I’d get a jump start and decided to use the Sketchy Challenges from January to April as card sketches as opposed to 12 x12 page sketches.

JANUARY

I used this linear sketch for my Father’s Day card. Snowflakes became gears and the background circle became a clock and voila! I used Bo Bunny’s Somewhere in Time collection for this card along with Bo Bunny Mamma-Razzi alphas and arrow stamp. The gears are from Retro Café and the sentiment is Stampin’ Up. The clock in the background is from the Tim Holtz giant tag mask.

FEBRUARY

February’s sketch became my mother-in-law’s card for Mother’s Day. The circles became a doily, the snowflakes became hearts and I replaced the photo with this cute little cut out. The Scrabble tiles are homemade…kind of. Waaaaaay back before scrabble tiles ever became popular in scrapbooking and before I had much access to scrapping supplies here in Nfld, I found myself in need of alphas for my pages. I hauled out my old Scrabble game, plopped the letters down in rows on my scanner and printed to my heart’s content. I was a woman ahead of my time!

Supplies include Simple Stories Homespun Collection, Black Soot Distress ink, and a sentiment from Stampin’ Up’s Teeny Tiny Wishes set.

MARCH

I still needed another Mother’s Day card for my own mom, and the March Sketchy challenge came to the rescue. All my scrappy friends make fun of me and call me the fussy cut queen. I can’t help it. I just love to cut up paper! So when I found this gorgeous sheet of frames in Bo Bunny’s Madeline collection, I couldn’t wait to get my scissors out and start snipping! It became my “photo” for this sketch. I didn’t have a lot of room for a big swirl so I used this stamp by Inkadinkadoo. I stamped on my card first, laid on my frame and then stamped over it so that it looks like some of the vines are coming up and over the frame. I did this by laying post it notes on most of my stamp before I re-inked. That way I only inked the little bit that I wanted to be over the frame. This works pretty well with clear stamps but I wouldn’t trust myself to try it with a wooden stamp! Another little cheat? I don’t actually sew on my cards and layouts much anymore as I’m too lazy to drag out the sewing machine. I just doodle my sewing lines these days with my trusty Sharpie!

Supplies for this card include Bo Bunny Madeline collection, Stampin’ Up sentiment, Stampin’ Up ticket corner punch and Inkadinkadoo stamp. Alphas are EK Success.

APRIL

This leads me to April’s fun, circle filled sketch! It just screamed boy and birthday to me, and so my nephew’s birthday card came together in a snap. It may be a little hard to see in the photo, but I started this card by masking off a wide stripe through the center and spritzing with Scattered Straw Distress ink. I then punched out circles in three different sizes, glued them on randomly and doodled around their edges.

I have a confession to make. I have never been to Disney and probably never will {unless I somehow end up going there with grandchildren sometime in the waaaaaay distant future}, but I could not resist these Say Cheese papers from Simple Stories. They are just so cute! This card proves that we don’t have to be boxed into a theme to use many papers. I was amazed at how quick this card came together. I love it!

Supplies include Simple Stories Say Cheese collection, Black Soot Distress ink, a sentiment from Inkadinkadoo and of course my trusty black Sharpie for doodling lines around the circles and a simple box around the edge to frame it and draw your eye in.

Thank you so much to the lovely ladies of CS for asking me to guest blog here today. I really enjoyed thinking outside the box and using Sue’s 12 x12 sketches to create these cards.

If you would like to see more of my projects, you can visit me at http://www.michellesscrapbits.blogspot.com

Thank you so much, Michelle, for sharing your love of crafting and showing us how to transform scrapbook sketches into card designs!