Becky Higgins inspired...

Good Morning Fellow Stampers!! Are you all dragging this Monday morning? My poor Josey has Chicken Pox!!! So she'll be hanging at home with Mom this week! Jordan was not a happy camper getting up so early this morning for school either. I'm infusing myself with coffee as my friend Val says. Hope you all have a great week!

Here's our winner of the Hanna Stamps sentiment set! Congratulations Lori!! I'll contact you at your blog to get your mailing address!! Thank you to all who entered the drawing, I had 284 wonderful comments!!!

Lori said...
After dinner at my mom's house, it's time to clean up and snack on the turkey skin and left over desserts. Have a happy holiday!

When I have free time I like to sketch out card layouts....very similar to what Becky Higgins does for scrapbook page layouts. I keep them in my card idea notebook that I've posted before. And I know Becky loves to make cards too and has begun to incorporate card ideas from her scrapbook layouts in her monthly spread in Creating Keepsakes magazine. So today's cards are are totally inspired by a few of Becky's scrapbook layouts from her new Sketches book. It is an invaluable resource for me as a scrapbooker AND a stamper. The idea is to find snippets of Becky's scrapbook layouts that would be suitable for cards. So I'm just using a portion of her layouts and interpreting them into cards. It's the perfect inspiration to find fun new twists for card layouts. You can find Becky's new Sketch book HERE or at your local scrapbook stores and you can follow Becky's blog HERE. If you missed her 12 Days of Christmas videos, be sure to scroll down to find them. She offers some great tips, and I think she had a different hair style every day......wish I could do that with my hair!!

Here are some of the sketches that I came up with after browsing through Becky's Sketch book. I usually sketch on scratch paper. Then if I like the layout after finishing a card and think it will be a *keeper* card layout that I'll use again and again, I'll add it to my card idea journal.

This card uses the new Basic Grey Figgy Pudding patterned paper, Karen Lockhart's Star Angel image and a PaperTrey Ink sentiment. This layout is a great way to incorporate two patterned papers easily, without being too *cluttered*. It's inspired from Becky's sketch on page 6 of her book. Image is colored in with Copic markers. I added silver shimmer to the angel's wings with a Silver Copic glitter pen and sparkle to the stars with Stampin Up! Dazzling Diamond's glitter. LOVE this layout!

The next card was inspired from Becky's sketch on page 65 of her book. Very clean and simple design and again allows a big piece of patterned paper to show through on the background. The image is from Karen Lockhart and is called Christmas Rose Stocking. I love the non-traditional colors on my cards today. I got the color inspiration from the fun Basic Grey Figgy Pudding patterned paper. I think this pretty robin's egg blue color and brown are my favorite color combination right now. I just can't get enough of it!! The image is colored with Copic markers. Simple *Cheers* sentiment from PaperTrey Ink.
Tip of the day: Next time you're waiting at the doctor's office or are sitting at your kids' practice, take along a little sketch book and your favorite marker and sketch out some card designs. It's fun to go home and create a card with a sketch you've drawn......then to see if it turned out like you planned. The hardest thing to do when creating cards is to get out all of our supplies and then to stare at that blank piece of cardstock with no ideas. By having a journal full of sketches, the inspiration will come quick and easy. Then it's just a matter of putting together the design elements like color, patterned paper, embellishments and ribbon. Try it, you can do it!!