Retro Rubber Challenge #116.. Tic Tac Toe..

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

We have a Tic Tac Toe board for you this time, created by our very own Jan

I love Tic Tac Toe, it always challenges my creativity.

This time as I have had SO many 40th birthday cards to make this year I thought I would use the challenge to make a masculine card for a friend.

I chose the top horizontal row - pattern paper, green, heat embossing.

First I heat embossed my sentiment - two parts from the same set 'Happy Day' by Concord & 9th - that I bought in early 2018 second-hand from a friend who had it since it's release in 2016. The green paper square is from a pad that I have had since I came to NYC on a trip in 2010!! I've been hoarding the pad as you can tell!

I then die-cut my 40 out of ancient green spotty paper from Michaels and after affixing the sentiment panel to my card, I popped the numbers up using foam tape.

Pretty easy fun 40th card for a male friend.

Which row will you choose? Can't wait to see your creations, don't forget to go over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends August 9th.

Don't forget to tell us the age of your stamp, that is part of the fun of our challenge and please only enter 10 challenges including Retro Rubber.

Cx

Retro Rubber Challenge #115 Colours ..still time to play

Hey,

There is still time for you to play along with the current Retro Rubber challenge.

The theme this time is colour - use the x3 colours on your card.

Show us how you use the colours and pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends July 26th

Don't forget to tell us the age of your stamp, that is part of the fun of our challenge and please only enter 10 challenges including Retro Rubber.


Cx

Sticker Magic...

Hey,

So I lied..here is a bonus post for you whilst I am on vacay..

I really wanted to show these cards, but sadly my photo is a bit washed out.

I bought these great stickers by American Crafts on sale in February.

I love stickers, but sometimes I get a bit stuck with how to use them and I saw a great idea on Pinterest that used a masked and blended circle, sentiment and a sticker.

So I made a ton of these using my sticker pack, the x6 cards here are my fave from the batch.

By just using a coordinating colour, the blended circle brings the sticker to life! I added simple sentiments that I thought worked well with the stickers. I created the mask using a circle die and one of the card backs that come with stamp sets, I keep these for masking, because they cover your whole card and you don't accidentally get ink anywhere and you can create one for each colour and get a few uses out of them.

Fun and super easy peasy to do and a great way to use a random purchase!

The white panel was die-cut using a Tim Holtz and Sizzix deckle edge die, I LOVE these dies and I bought them on sale because I saw them and had to have them, they are going to be super handy for Christmas cards I think.

Cx

Bulldog Birthday...

Hey,

Happy Thursday to you.

This is my last post for a week or so, as Hubby and I are leaving today for his 40th birthday trip to Ibiza and London - WHOOP!!

I made today's card for a good friend - she loves Dogs and has x2 enormous Staffies!

I totally forgot that I had this Tim Holtz set of Dog stamps and when I rediscovered them, I made a bunch of fun cards including this one.

I had stamped and coloured the Dog and added the sentiment, but it all felt a bit boring, so I added the teeny triangle background by Avery Elle and I think ti totally brought the card to life.

See you in 10 days!

Cx

Retro Rubber Challenge #115 - Colour Challenge..

Hey,

Welcome to another awesome Retro Rubber challenge.

This time we want you to explore what you can do with a few colours...

Purple is one of my fave colours, so this little combo really worked for me.

I dug out a fave Lawn Fawn stamp set 'Year 7' - they release a birthday stamp set every year on their birthday and this one is from 2016.

I stamped the little candies all over my white panel and added some of the confetti stamp too. I coloured the candies using the purple, yellow, green colour combo.

Then I die-cut the panel using a stitched rectangle die and then again using a circle die to remove the central piece.

I coloured the pinata using the colours and put a piece of purple cardstock behind the die-cut circle so that the pinata would stand out. I used a piece of clear acetate to affix the pinata to my card and you can barely see it.

Final touches were to add Nuvo glitter drops to the confetti stamping and to add the sentiment, which I stamped onto scrap pieces of purple paper.

I love this layout I use it a lot for cards and it worked really well here, it was a lot of fun to dig out my neglected stamp set.

Show us how you use the colours and pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends July 26th.

Don't forget to tell us the age of your stamp, that is part of the fun of our challenge and please only enter 10 challenges including Retro Rubber.

Cx

Add some foil..

Hey,

Happy Monday!

Hope you had a good weekend.

I am getting prepped and excited now, as Hubby and I leave for his 40th birthday trip to Ibiza and London on Thursday! WHOOP!!

Today I am showing you a good way to get the most out of a small sheet of Deco Foil.

I have a Deco Foil pen - love this, it's a great way to add foil to your projects without a foiling machine.

Basically, you use the pen to draw lines, dots, whatever you want, apply your foil and then run it through your die-cutting machine and then peel off the foil and it will have stuck to the parts that you drew with the pen. Fun and easy. Here is a tutorial.

The main card uses the panel that I really wanted to create with my foil sheet - a large striped panel. But that left SO much foil unused on the sheet, so I got a bunch of paper offcuts/shapes and added Deco pen dots to them to create all these backgrounds -

Sorry about the glare, really hard to photograph foil!

Fun way to get a bunch of fun foiled backgrounds and minimise waste.

I have created one other card using the foiled backgrounds - 

Fun way to add some added interest and shimmer to my projects.

Here's a list of what I used for each card.
Wildflowers card:
Ellen Hutson - Mondo Wildflowers stamps and dies
Sentiments - Ellen Hutson Mondo Sakura

Party Fox card:
Avery Elle - Party Fox stamps and dies
Sentiment banner die by Lil Inker Designs

Both cards were coloured using Copic Sketch Markers.

Cx

Sketch Saturday #572 Beccy's Place...

Hey,

Happy Saturday to you and welcome to the latest sketch for the Sketch Saturday challenge.

Our sponsor this week is Beccy's Place and they are offering a gift card of $10Australian Dollars.

Here's the sketch...

I love this sketch by Deb, it was so much fun to play with. I decided to use a freebie image from the Beccy's Place blog - Strawberry Cupcake.

I printed, coloured and fussy cut the image. I created the background, using a variety of square dies and all my papers came out of my scrap folders.

I decided to go with sparkly purple flags to match the sketch and opted for no sentiment.

I can't wait to see what you do with the sketch, but first check out what the rest of the DT have made over at Sketch Saturday.

Challenge ends Fri 19th 7pm GMT / 2pm EST

Cx

CASology: Citrus..

Hey,

Happy Friday to you!!

It has been a busy week - hence why it has been a week since I posted!!

This morning I got up super early to do small group training with Wendel and another client of his, it was HARD but a lot of fun.

To celebrate the weekend I wanted to enter the current CASology challenge.

I haven't played along in a while and I thought it was just perfect for my new digital stamp set by Graciellie Design 'Tea for the Soul' I love their stamps, they are so pretty and beautiful to colour.

I printed, coloured and fussy cut the teacup stamp. I really wanted to keep the background clean, but it all looked a bit flat when I put it together, so I used the Lil Inkers Spiral Cover-up die on the bottom half of the card and it totally brought my card to life.

The sentiment is from the same set and it makes me laugh every time I see it. I added a few yellow enamel dots here and there to finish my card.

I am so happy I decided to play along, it made me very happy last night to make this card.

Have a great weekend.

Oh and here is a little montage from Hubby's birthday party last weekend!

Hubby with his candles on a half-eaten doughnut! Group selfie, Hubby at the after-party, The x2 3ft Subs!

Cx

The Library: Rainbow..

Hey,

Happy Friday!

I hope all my US based peeps had a happy 4th of July yesterday..I was recovering from a rather large pre-4th night out...

I stumbled across this fun challenge called The Library and I thought my recent spate of cards would fit their current challenge really well.

You can choose to use the cover, the title or the story to inspire your card.

I obviously went with the title :)

I have made a TON of rainbow unicorn cards this week, as I got a whole batch of new stamps from Ellen Hutson and I had to play with them STAT..

I stamped, coloured and cut the clouds, rainbow and unicorn from this Unicorns 'N Rainbows set. The sentiment is also by Ellen Hutson and from the 'Pure Magic' sentiment set. And I mean how hilarious is this sentiment?! I want all my sentiments to include the words glitter and farts!

The firework/sparkle background stamp is by Unity Stamp co from their 'Celebrate the New' set.

I added Nuvo Aquashimmer pen to most of the elements on the card and I wish you could see how shimmery it is IRL.

I will show you the rest of my Unicorn / Rainbow makes next week.

Have a great weekend, I am throwing Hubby an early 40th birthday party tomorrow, which I am really looking forward to.

Cx

Alcohol Ink Techniques..

Hey,

A few weeks ago I did a fun Alcohol inks class taught by Cheiron and it really helped me to understand how to use them a bit better.

I made this little set of backgrounds and I played with the alcohol ink lift technique too.

They came out so well! So bright and varied - but heavy on the pink, as I love how bright that always is with these inks.

I made the four fun cards that you see in the main photo. The one bottom left is what you get after you do the alcohol ink technique and then stamp it off. It finally worked for me!

My supplies clockwise from top left -
30th Card - The Ink Road stamps, MFT Banner die, Misc number dies (gift from Cheiron)
HB Card - Tim Holtz stamps, Stampin' Up die
Thanks Card - Lawn Fawn scripty thanks die
Alpaca Card - Taylored Expressions stamps and dies, Hero Arts swirls background.

Jennifer Mcguire has a few cool videos on these techniques if you are interested.

Cx

Retro Rubber Challenge #114.. Christmas in July...

Happy July!

Here at Retro Rubber, we are starting off this month with a bang (because it’s July, after all)!

We are starting our challenge a day early so that we can team up with the Double Trouble Challenge!

Our theme is Christmas in July so all you have to do for our challenge is to make a Christmas card using at least one stamp older than a year.

Here’s the cool part: by teaming with Double Trouble, you get to play along with their challenge as well. All you need to do is follow their requirements which are super easy and fun!

• Thing 1 – Double Trouble: Make a square card, scrapbook page, gift box or use squares on your project.
• Thing 2 – Double Dare: Use a rubber or acrylic stamp older than one year. (Sweet – that’s us!)
• Thing 3 – Twisted Sister: If you create a beach scene with Santa you can earn an extra chance to be in Double Trouble’s random draw.

Be sure to visit their website – Double Trouble Challenge – to get all the details for their challenge to make sure that you are following their requirements as well!

So here we go! Double the fun! Double the Trouble!

For my card I decided to use an all time fave stamp set by Newton's Nook 'Sun Soaked Christmas', I love this set and I've had it since 2016 and it has been used every Christmas since. I did the x3 things as required and I made a square card, my set is older than a year AND I created a beachy scene.

I created my background for Santa by using an MFT stencil to create the waves and then added in some clouds using my fave Dutchdoobadoo cloud stencil. The little sun die is by MFT and a new addition to my stash.

The sentiment is from the same set as Santa.

Fun card AND my first Christmas card of 2019.

Pop over to Double Trouble and Retro Rubber and see what the DT have made.

Challenge ends July 12.

Cx