hello and welcome to...

♥ sketchfest! ♥

i do hope you're rested and rarin' to go, because this is going to be an action-packed, fun-filled, sketch-based week!!! the caardvarks have got a brand new 24-hour sketch challenge every single day, and there are loads of lovely studio calico goodies up for grabs, as well as... are you ready for this?! hold onto your hat, ok? ...for our grand prize at the end of the week, one very special cardmaker who's completed ALL SEVEN sketches by the deadlines will be offered a spot on the caardvarks crew!!! uh-huh, you read that right. how cool is THAT??!

the 'varks were each given a luscious studio calico add-on kit with which to create our cards for this week. i've never worked with a kit before... (despite lusting over MANY, particularly the SC ones) ...so i wanted to see if i could budget the supplies and do ALL SEVEN sketches without adding in any additional supplies except neutral cardstock. it was a bit of a challenge...but i'm proud to report that i succeeded; i even made an extra card, and i have leftovers!

i absolutley LOVE all of m'colleague heidi van laar's gorgeous sketches for this event,but secretly... (shhhhh!) ...this one *might* be my favorite. i mean, just look at that lovely oval focal point, not to mention the gorgeous swirly bits! yeah, this one kinda has "lauren" written all overit, dontcha think?!


i wound up rotating the sketch 90 degrees so that i could fit a festive birthday greeting into the oval,but other than that i stuck quite strictly to the sketch. i used maya road chipboard flourishes as a template to make my swirls, which are composed of the kit's decorative tape (see photos below). i used a stencil to trace the inner oval, cut it out and mounted it on a second piece of paper from the kit and cut out again leaving about an 1/8" border all around. super-thin, high-contrast mats are my new favorite technique...a bit rough on the old carpal tunnels, but hard to beat for a dramatic look!

all primary materials are from the studio calico "director's cut" add-on kit; other items: hobby lobby kraft cardstock, colorbox inks, zig pen, marvy & martha stewart butterflypunches, fiskars border punch

and now a quick photostory of how to make decorative tape into patterned paper...and use it to create fun flourishes!

TRACE your desired shape on a scrap of cardstock

COVER the traced shape with tape

RE-TRACE the shape on top of the tape

CUT OUT the shape and use it like any other embellishment!

be sure to stop over at CAARDVARKS to read all the details of this week's festivities, see the design team's gorgeous cards, and learn how to link up your own gorgeous creations. i'll be back tomorrow with my card for day two!