Hey Everyone

Welcome to our sketch #500 celebration at Freshly Made Sketches!  This milestone sketch challenge has been designed by the amazing Linda Callahan. Linda is not only talented in card making but she creates fab sketches too!

Our crafting community is incredibly generous and we are so happy some of our favorite companies are helping us mark this milestone.  It is hard to believe that when Lesley started this challenge, we would still be going strong 10 years later.  And that, our friends, is because of YOU.  Our players inspire us week in and week out with your creative takes on our designs.  We are thrilled to be able to reward you with some fabulous prizes!  After you take in the team’s take on Linda’s sketch, you can find all the details below.  

Also, some of the team members are giving away their own prizes as part of the celebration.  Those will be listed on our personal blogs along with the details to win!  Please hop through our links to see our own thoughts on this celebration and to say hi!

My stamp set of choice is the Christmas Season Stamp Set. The pine cones have been cut out with the matching Seasonal Layers Dies. I’ve gone with a new-to-me colour combination for the stamping – Blackberry Bliss, Gray Granite and Evening Evergreen. Even though Blackberry Bliss is an unusual colour for pine cones, I think it works quite well. The base colour of the two-step stamping is stamped in Gray Granite Ink and the second part of the stamping is stamped with Blackberry Bliss Ink.

The leaves have been stamped in Evening Evergreen Ink. Even though there are matching dies, I have fussy cut the leaves out because I like a really fine line around the image.

My card base for once is not Basic White Cardstock! I have gone with Blackberry Bliss Cardstock, then a Gray Granite piece mats the Basic White Cardstock. On this Basic White Cardstock, I added a strip of subtle DSP. It’s from the Peaceful Place Designer Series Paper pack.

The sentiment that I added to my card is from the Tidings & Trimmings Stamp Set. It was the perfect fit for the sketch and I didn’t want to overpower the pine cones with a large sentiment. Three Basic Rhinestones finished off my card.

Our winners of these prizes will be randomly chosen from those who join the gallery this week.  Once chosen, we will contact you via the information you give in the link tool and post here on the blog.  You will have 5 days to respond or we will choose a different recipient.  So make sure you come back next week to check!

• Ellen Hutson: $20 Gift Certificate
• Gina K Designs:  $50 Gift Certificate
• Hero Arts:  $25 Gift Certificate
• Honey Bee Stamps:  $25 Gift Certificate
• Lawn Fawn:  $25 Gift Certificate
• Lisa Curcio, Independent Stampin’ Up Demonstrator: $25 Stampin’ Up credit (redeemable only through Lisa’s Stamp Studio)
• Picket Fence Studios: $25 Gift Certificate
• Poppy Stamps: $25 Gift Certificate
• Reverse Confetti: 2 x $15 Gift Certificates
• Simply Graphic: 15€ Gift Certificate
• SugarPea Designs: $25 Gift Certificate
• Taylored Expressions: $25 Gift Certificate

We are so grateful to these amazing sponsors for their support and generosity!  

We have a few simple rules to keep things fun and fair for all of our players:

• Please use any crafting product you would like to use.
• Feel free to combine our challenge with up to THREE other challenges, except for another sketch challenge.
• Please add a DIRECT link to your blog or other online gallery when adding your card to the link below.  If linking to a public gallery, use keyword FMS500.
• Include our challenge sketch and a link back to Freshly Made Sketches on your post.
• Have fun!

This challenge will end at 3:00 EDT time on Monday, August 30th.  On Tuesday, we will announce the winner of this week’s challenge who will be known as the “Queen or King of Clean”.  The team will choose other gallery favorites to be known as a “Perfect Princess or Prince”.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Narelle