Sketches As Inspiration

Inspiration
Happy Belated World Card Making Day!  Yes, yesterday was World Card Making Day, and I spent the day making cards!  What a great way to spend a Saturday.
If you are a card maker, you know there are those days where you know you need to make a card, but have no idea what to make.  One of my favorite ways to kick start card making is to use a sketch.  A sketch is simply a layout for a card – the placement and proportions used to create the card, but everything else (the color, paper, techniques, theme, stamps, etc.) are all yours. 
If you haven’t used a sketch before, a great place to start is with the weekly Sketch Challenge at Splitcoast – every Wednesday a new sketch is posted, and everyone who plays uploads their take on the sketch to a gallery.  It is always impressive how many beautiful and unique creations you will see, and they all start with the same layout.  You can find all of the sketch challenges here.
Here is the current sketch challenge. The sketch ID is SC300 (i.e. SplitCoast 300 – YES it is the 300th challenge!!!). The colors and numbers have no special meaning – they are just there to help you identify the pieces.  You can flip the layout, change the sizes of the pieces, or other tweaks, but the goal of the challenge is to see the main elements of the layout used.  This one consists of 4 main pieces: the base card, and 3 overlapping rectangles.
When I start with a sketch, I think about where the focal point of the card would be, then I to spend some time looking through stamps I haven’t used in a while. I concentrate on the stamps that fit the theme I want to create (if I have one), or colors I’m interested in, etc.  Coordinated papers really help in the process, especially for layers.
Here’s my interpretation of SC300.  Since I picked a long tree image, I flipped the sketch to a portrait layout instead of landscape, and the middle/top panel is longer and more narrow.

Hint: If you like to make multiple cards, this is a great sketch for that.  Just cut all your rectangles first, then as you’ll see below, it’s an easy production line assembly process!
Ingredients
Paper (all SU!)

Color	Size
Crushed Curry(SU!)	a)  4 1/4” x 11”, score at 5 1/2"
Taken with Teal(SU!)	a)  4 1/8” x 5 3/8”
Really Rust (SU!)	a)  3 3/4” x 1 5/8” b)  3 1/4” x 1 3/8” c)   4 1/8” x 2”
Autumn Meadows DSP (SU!) (teal leaf pattern)	a)  4” x 5 1/4” b)  4” x 1 7/8”
Autumn Meadows DSP (SU!) (teal wavy line pattern)	a)  3 5/8” x 1 1/2” b)  3 1/8” x 1 1/4”
Very Vanilla (SU!)	a)  4 1/4” x 5 1/2”

Ink
Really Rust (SU!), More Mustard (SU!), Taken with Teal (SU!), Chocolate Chip (SU!)
Stamps
Season of Friendship (SU!)
Accessories
Scor-Pal; Glue dots; Adhesive Transfer Gun 714 (Scotch); Rotary trimmer with straight blade (Fiskars); Scissors
Instructions
Image
Use the Very Vanilla panel, and stamp the tree in brown.  Cut it out, trimming closely around the edges.
Then stamp the leaves in yellow, rust, and teal on the remaining vanilla cardstock.  Use the 3/4” circle punch to cut out the leaves.
Assembly
Fold the yellow card base on the scored line.  Then layer on the solid teal panel, followed by the teal leaf paper.
Mount the teal wavy patterned paper onto the rust paper; these are mounted to the lower half of the card.  Mount the remaining teal leaf patterned paper on rust, and mount it on vertically on the card.
Mount the tree trunk in the center, then add the leaves using glue dots.
Inside
For this card, I cut another teal panel (4 1/8” x 5 3/8” ), and a vanilla panel (4” x 5 1/8”), and mounted them inside.  I stamped a birthday sentiment in rust.
Try out a sketch challenge next time you’re feeling stuck for card ideas – it’s a great boost!.
Thanks for stopping by.
Lisa Lynne