Autumn Retiform

Back to my roots this morning, with some good old-fashioned stamping.

I first saw this technique when a friend posted a card on FB and mentioned that she used the 'retiform' technique. I googled "retiform technique" and there were some excellent tutorials on YouTube. The theme this week at The Male Room is Autumn or fall, so I used my Autumn Days stamp set, which hasn't seen the light of day for quite a while. I added images from Simply Sketched, French Foliage and Lovely As A Tree.

 

I started by masking off areas of the card using More Mustard ink and in this way formed the 'grid'. Then by masking of the individual panels using post-it notes, I stamped the connected images using Tangelo Twist, Chocolate Chip and More Mustard. I made the sentiment attachment using an oval die and the birthday greeting from Simply Sketched. My biggest problem was keeping the ink in the
right place, stamping cleanly and selecting the images moor each panel. Other than that it was a breeze!
Going to link up with the challenge at Make My Monday, haven't played over there in such a long time and I see that they have an Autumn colours challenge.

Christmas Keepsake

Thursday's sure come round quickly! It's time for me to share a card made for today's challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. It is a sketch challenge this week. I also had a little help from the colour challenge at Cupcake Inspirations and from the cue word at casology. I haven't made a Christmas card in a while either. Some of you will remember that I used to design for 52 Christmas Card Throwdown and I hope my old teamies over there won't mind me playing along this week with their challenge too.

So here it is, or rather they are. I made two cards, in truth because I messed up one and had to make the second but the first one was still good and well, you can't have too many handmade Christmas cards can you?

This one is for CC&S. I used Ornament Keepsakes, a retired stamp set from SU, but still a good one and an embossing folder with a holly leaf pattern. The sentiment is from Holiday Home and I used a die tag to cut it out. The images were stamped, die cut and recessed behind the embossed card. This is my card for Cupcake Insirations too.

Here is my second card for the other challenges. I've used the same sketch but not used the embossed layer. I changed the tag and used tape to affix the ribbon to look like the strings from the ornaments. With its lack of embellishments I think this would be a great Christmas card for a guy and that's the challenge at 52CCT.

You can see that the ornaments were popped up this time. The Casology cue is circles, and I want to thanks those ladies over there because that's what made me go rummaging through my stamp sets to find this one again!

Oh, nearly forgot, here is the sketch and the colour palette

Spooky As A Tree

Happy Thursday to you all! On Thursdays I post my DT card for the newchallenge at CaS Colours &Sketches and today I have a colour challenge card for you.

This time I used the colours to create a small scene which, centred on a white card blank. Lovely As A Tree was sat on my table, I just LOVE this stamp. It was my first SU set and it's timeless, versatile and stamps perfectly every time.

This time I've created a background by swiping the ink pads over white card stock. This gives a great effect, different every time you do it, and the new juicy ink pads work so well. I cut the part of the image I wanted to use and then added the bats.The dark stamping of the trees, bats and sentiment has all been in Chocolate Chip. To keep it CAS I did not use a colour mat, just adhered the scene to the card blank. The tiny sentiment also allows lots of white space.

Can you spot the Wild Wasabi? Probably not, as I used Certain Celery, but any light green will be fine for the challenge, and mine is hidden by an over swiping of the Lost Lagoon. This allows the foreground to appear different from the sky. Take a closer look..

I promise you it is there, but it was too light on its own for a night scene. the little bats and the greeting are from Holiday Home. I really like it when you can take an essentially non-CAS technique and make it clean and simple by your design. This is probably only the third Halloween card I've made,like ever, but it is my favourite, I probably overstating it but  it feels like art!

Rock Out in Neon

I missed the last challenge at The Male Room. I was trying to get all the posts ready to schedule whilst I was away and that one slipped through the net. So, I have diligently worked on my masculine card for this next challenge.

Of course, on any DT you know what's coming up weeks, or even months in advance, so when I saw Visible Ink had some stamps on sale a couple of weeks ago I got the rocking guitarist image with this challenge in mind. I used a green background paper which I matched to the neon green in my post-it note block and then I had a lightbulb moment- you know, when some stroke of genius comes to you from who knows where! I would use the actual post-it for an upbeat, young and trendy touch.

I hope you think it works, I'm so pleased with this card. Young teenage males seem very hard to design for. The Spider-Man card I made a few challenges ago for TMR started me thinking, bold, bright colours seem to work, and punchy sentiments. 

I added the 'on your birthday' bit by stamping part of a sentiment from the Happy Hour set. The image is embossed to add some texture and I have fixed the post it note more firmly with double sided tape.

I'm going to link up my card to the Anything Goes challenge at Seize The Birthday  and, with my tongue firmly in my cheek, to the music theme challenge at Cas-Ual Fridays too.

Grungy Flowers

I'm back! This is my first post since I went off on holiday, the five of us (hubby and three offspring- can't really say children anymore!) were lucky enough to be able to get away for a three week whirlwind tour of Florida, finishing with some theme park fun days out in Orlando. It was a ball! Now I've had a good break I really enjoyed an afternoon of crafting earlier this week when everyone went back to school, work, university etc. I made three cards but I've just got one to share this morning, it's for the sketch challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches

I had a little extra help too, from the colour palette at The Colour Throwdown

I used a stamp set from Visible Image for this one. If you know me you'll know I don't do floral very often or very well, so this stamp set caught my eye as a bit grungy and alternative. See what you think...

A purist might say that a CAS card is no place for embellishments and, on the whole I agree, but these little brads from Stampin Up just matched so perfectly and I thought they added something to the card, rather than detract from it. I just love the little Kraft coloured butterfly! There is plenty of white space too 

I also used Work Of Art to stamp the 'buds' beneath the brads. The sentiment is from Blooming Marvellous and I used my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to get it in just the right position. 

I used Kraft card as a mat and added a simple scored frame. I hope that, like me, you find some time to craft in this coming week and I look forward to seeing those sketch inspired cards over at the challenge blog.