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.

Feminine Fall Card

I needed to make a birthday card for my mother-in-law and the challenge photo at Cupcake Inspirations gave me a great idea..

Don't they look delicious? Love those autumnal colours too and I must admit I usually use them for cards for men, so I challenged myself to make a card with a more feminine touch.

I love the pinks and oranges along with the brown and gold. I've used a few stamps, the small leaf is from Autumn Days, the sentiment is from Simply Sketched and of course my current top pick, Off The Grid is in there too, this time embossed in gold.The leaf is like faux cloisonne and I've matted it onto brown CS and fussy cut it out before using foam pads to add dimension. The papers are both from SU. This is the second card I made, you can see both cards in this pic below

For mre my first attempt, on the left, wasn't feminine enough but I love the rich fabric brad next to the sentiment and this time I've embossed in copper.  I'm sure this one will find a good home too.
As I've made birthday cards I'm also going to enter them in the current challenge at Seize The Birthday, as I haven't played along there for a while.

The Great Outdoors (in 4 stamp sets)

The third challenge at The Male Room is The Great Outdoors.  This is going to mean a lot of different things to different people.  My original thoughts were of nature, but I  needed to be a bit more adventurous so I thought of camping and activity holidays, but I really don't have the right stamps for that.  I do however have a bicycle stamp and so I've adapted it to fit in with the theme. My bicycle stamp has a basket on the front, not very masculine I feel, so I carefully inked up the stamp with a marker, avoiding the basket part of the image.

I have combined several stamps sets here, Lovely as a Tree in the background, the leaf from Autumn Days and the bicycle from Pedal Presents. Some of the leaves are fussy cut and popped up to add layers, more of a feel of rustling through the autumn leaves. My card is actually an easel card, which you can see below

Here's the detail from the 'stand' - another stamp set - this time Vintage Verses, for the sentiment.  This card is for my husband for our wedding anniversary, so the words are just right. More fussy cut leaves - one almost blowing off the card!

I do hope that you will join in our challenge again, remember you have two weeks to come up with a masculine card on the theme of The Great Outdoors. There are some other ideas by the DT over on the blog - do take a look.
Happy Crafting!

Colours and Sketches #3

It's our third week at Colours and Sketches - the new challenge blogs for lovers of the CAS style. This week it's a sketch challenge -

As you will see, I've taken a bit of a liberty and used an oval rather than the rectangle, but you can stil easily recognise the sketch.

I started with the pheasant 'tile'.  I first stamped the pheasant and grasses images onto a piece of mount board and then used distress inks to add colour, one was Moss green and the other I forget! Then, using first fine clear embossing powder and then ultra thick I built up several layers on the top, creating a ceramic tile effect. The rest was easy! Some red cardstock, and two matching DSPs from Stampin' Up.  I haven't added a sentiment as I wasn't sure whether I wanted to use this as a Christmas card or as a (male) birthday card, so I will probably stamp the required one inside at the time of sending!. Here's a close up of that tile.

Do have a look at our new challenge blog, the other members of the DT also have created some fab cards with this sketch.

Autumn Tweet Leaves

There's a great challenge that I haven't done for ages...shame on me, but today I have made a card that I think fits the bill quite nicely.  The challenge blog is Make My Monday and the challenge is Autumn with Kraft and twine.

I made the background with kraft card which I stamped with an oak leaf from my Lovely as A Tree, a favourite set -first use of the leaf though. Then I stamped the Tweet Leaves image using a variety of autumnal coloured inks, I sponged the edge and mounted onto the Kraft background. I stamped a little 'for you' sentiment and cut it out in the shape of a tag.  Stamping some more leaves, this time from Autumn Days I fussy cut them and popped them up on dimensionals.  Finally I added a twine bow and yes it is orange twine, straight from the garden centre. I used Naturals White card stock for the card base and all the stamped images - it's the best  thing in my stash right now! I will also enter this card in The Cupboard Trilogy Challenge, as over there the theme for November is Autumn or Halloween.
November 19th Update - just looked over at Make My Monday and my card has been picked for Top 3! Chuffed!

Autumn Film Birthday

The Autumn Days stamp set from Stampin' Up has been around for a while now, it's one of the first sets I bought and I still love it and love thinking of new ways to use it.  This card was inspired by the sketch challenge at Less Is More this week, which is beautiful in it's simplicity- actually I think I may have 'over-egged the pudding' with this one, but I will still give it a go.
Here is the sketch:

It reminded me of a film frame I had seen in a magazine once and so I cut one out of black card stock and used my punch to add the tiny holes you see on 35mm film.  Then I masked off the rest of the card and stamped the pheasant, moving the image across each time so it looks like the frames of a moving image.

I added a sentiment which I inked up in the same colours as I used for the bird image and then heat embossed to make it more defined. I think this will make a lovely masculine card for one of the men in my family, probably my Dad as he's a bit of a bird watcher!

Autumn Sympathy

What I love most about Autumn are the colours of the leaves.  They've only just started to turn where we live, so the beautiful reds, browns, yellow and orange are not yet in full flow and yet, when I saw the challenge on Cas-ual Fridays this week was a clean and simple project inspired by Autumn I knew that it was the colours that I most wanted to feature.

I chose Autumn Days (not very original, I know) and used the leaf and the wheat stems.  I stamped the leaf onto a peachy card blank in several Autumn shades to make a background for the sentiment, which I trimmed with a couple of gold embossed wheat stem images. I think that 'white space' means empty space, rather than 'white', so I hope my card is acceptable as CAS. I thought that this card would be suitable for a With Sympathy sentiment as it is calm and reflective and Autumn, for me is always a little bit sad as the summer has gone and another year will soon be over.

Wild flowers mark 2

My previous card has made me think about the pull up card which I originally made for the Make my Monday but didn't think it was good enough! The problem was the pull up tab, it needed something. Well, here is my new, improved version, which , if it is OK with the ladies at MMM I will enter as well.  I have used more stamps from Deezines Art, and the grasses from SU's Autumn Days.

I stamped the cow parsley stem in white and clear embossed it for a very subtle effect, but it definitely adds something to the card.
I am going to relax now and sit in my garden, to enjoy some of this glorious sun!