Easy 3-Strip Sketch

by | Oct 30, 2025 | Sketch Challenge, Stampin Blends, Stamping | 0 comments

I created 24 of this card design for the November card ministry at our church. I needed a quick-to-make design this month because the coordinator didn’t have many cards extra from last month. I think that I’ve usually made cards with a Fall theme for November birthdays and this year I decided to do something different. November is stick season in Vermont, and it’s not especially pretty. The trees are bare, the skies are generally gloomy, and it just feels “meh” to me. I wanted to create bright, cheerful cards to counteract the dreariness of November.

I pulled out some retired products for these cards. The Snail Mail patterned paper was in a January – May (or perhaps April) mini catalog a few years ago. It was part of a whole suite of fun, whimsical paper, stamps and dies. One of the snails on the patterned paper reminds me of Gary the snail who was Sponge Bob’s pet in the goofy Nickelodeon cartoon. I remember hearing lots of Sponge Bob in the background at our house many years ago – and the main person watching wasn’t our son… it was my husband! 😉 I used some ribbon that I’ve had in my stash for many years. I think it may be from the time when Crushed Curry originally came to be as one of the In Colors in 2009. I just did an interwebz search for that date info, and I confess that I’m shocked at how old this color is. I’ve clearly been a demonstrator for a long time when I can talk about a color being new (once upon a time) when it is really 16 years old! Yikes!!!

This is the sketch layout that I used for my card design. It is from a summer virtual class that I took a few months ago. This sketch was one of the challenges that the team provided before the event. I’ve been wanting to use this sketch for ages and had pseudo planned to use it for cards for the church card ministry. This month was finally the time to make it happen!

I love the versatility of the sketch and how perfect the strips are for using some of the fantastic Stampin’ Up!â„¢ patterned papers. I like to use retired papers for the card ministry and this sketch was perfect for pulling out some fun paper from my burgeoning stash.

The sizes of the strips make it easy to get a bunch of cards out of 3 sheets of patterned paper (pattern A, B and C). I cut a 4 1/2″ x 12″ strip of all 3 patterns. For the middle pattern (pattern B) I cut 12 pieces from the strip. For the other two designs I cut alternating pieces of 1 1/4″ and 3/4″ which gives 12 pieces (2 different designs) for the left and right strips. This will come together to create 12 panels; 6 with pattern A on the left and 6 with pattern C on the left. And the whole 4 1/2″ x 12″ strip is used!

I encourage you to give it a try with some paper that you have. This would be great to feature some pretty Christmas paper for the holidays, and it’s great for mass production.

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