I Dig You! - Freshly Made Sketches #79

Whoo Hoo! I am back today with another fabulous sketch by Rita Wright over at Freshly Made Sketches. I just love their sketches and am so inspired to create! I haven't played in a few weeks but I was thrilled to be chosen by Jen B. as a "Perfect Princess" for my last entry in Freshly Made Sketches Challenge #75!! Please click here if you would like to see my entry!

Here is this week's wonderful sketch:

and here is my I Dig You birthday card!

I am so tickled with how it turned out! Of course all the coordinating products that Stampin' Up! sells makes this soooo easy! Hmmm, have I said that before?

My starting point for this project was the paper. It seemed so bright and cheerful to me that it was practically screaming "choose me, choose me!", so I did! The color tones suggested little boy birthday to me and I immediately thought of my neglected but well loved stamp set, I Dig You so I pulled it out and got busy.

You may notice a trend with my cards to trim a piece of cardstock to just slightly smaller than the base size and pop it up on Stampin' Dimensionals. I find that it adds a bit of "wow" factor as well as giving me a wonderful place to tuck the ribbon...I prefer not to have the ribbon visible on the inside of the card, just a personal preference. You could skip this step and just tuck the ends of the ribbon under the circle on the front and make a card with a lower profile for mailing. Just a thought!

I just love, love, love this little dump truck but I wanted it to color coordinate with my Designer Series Paper so I stamped each part individually and then fussy cut each piece out and adhered them to my circle base with Stampin' Dimensionals. I used the 1" circle punch for the back tire and I tried to use our 3/4" circle punch for the front tire but it was just a bit too small. I was not about to attempt to hand cut that circle so I pulled out one of the few non-Stampin' Up! tools I own (I know, gasp) to make a circle just the right size. I am hoping that Circle Framelits will be available in the new catalog so I can retire my contraband supply! Hope!

I added a 3/16" Metallic Brad to each tire with my Paper Piercing Tool and Stampin' Pierce Mat. I just poked the hole, slipped the brad in and folded the prongs flat. I usually lay the piece with the brad on it down on a hard flat surface and push GENTLY to flatten the brad out.

New stamps have a trace of film on them from the manufacturing process, simply sand the image GENTLY to remove the film and clean the image before inking up and you will have very clean images as demonstrated here in my dump truck. I think they turned out very nicely. I am not thrilled with the result of inking up the presents image with my Stampin' Markers. I tried and tried to get a crisp image but this was as good as they got. I don't believe it is the fault of my Stampin' Markers but rather operator error at fault here so I kept the images as is and use it is an example of why you want to sand GENTLY. Too much sanding could impact your final product! But life isn't perfect right? RIGHT?!? So I'm taking a deep breath and living with it! 

The final touch was some ribbon. I simply layered three different colors and textures together and decided to forgo a knot. I think the image is impact enough and in my husband's world ribbon is barely tolerated and bows or knots not at all, lol. I use his opinion in my guide to masculine cards!

I'm not sure a three year old boy would be that impressed with my efforts but I bet his mom would! Haha, it's the thought that counts anyway.

I hope you have enjoyed my post and are inspired to get those supplies out!

Stampin Supplies:

Stamps: I Dig You (122722)

Paper: Crumb Cake (120953), Midnight Muse (126843), Very Vanilla (101650) Cardstock; Print Poetry (129312) Designer Series Paper Stack

Ink: Jet Black StazOn Ink Pad (101406); Midnight Muse (126860), Summer Starfruit (126991) Classic Stampin' Pad; Midnight Muse (126853), Not Quite Navy (119701), Summer Starfruit (126853) Stampin' Write Markers (Please note that all of the markers are sold in sets only)

Tools: 2 1/2" Circle Punch (120906), 1" Circle Punch (119868), Stampin' Trimmer (126889), Paper Piercing Tool (126189), Stampin' Pierce Mat (126199)

Embellishments:  3/8" Denim Jean Ribbon (125053), 4/8" Stitched Satin Ribbon in Summer Starfruit (126846), Natural 7/16" Trim Ribbon (129287), 3/16" Mettalic Brads in Pewter (119741)

Thanks for stopping by!