Retro Rubber #271 - Colour Challenge - Cotton Candy Spring...

Hey,

Welcome to another awesome Retro Rubber challenge.

This time we have a colour challenge for you - pretty springy candy colours!

These colours were so much fun to work with!

Of course, I had to grab my fave MFT Mini Cloud Edger stencil to create a pretty sky for the card I had in mind. I added a Taylored Expressions grass die-cut and then die-cut the whole panel using a stitched rounded rectangle die.

I love this Mama Elephant 'Little Line Agenda' set (I have had it since 2024). It's always so cute. I coloured one of the lines using the colours from the challenge and added a bit of grey for the bunnies. It's very easy to fussy cut, so I did that and popped it up with some foam tape. I mixed a couple of sentiments to get what I wanted.

How will you use the colours? I can't wait to see! Don't forget to pop over to Retro Rubber, and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends May 15th.

Don't forget to tell us the age of your stamp, that is part of the fun of our challenge, and please only enter 5 challenges including Retro Rubber.

Cx

Retro Rubber Challenge #249 - Tic Tac Toe...

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

This time we have a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge for you.

These are always so fun and it's great to see what other people make using the same row that you chose!

I went with the diagonal row from bottom left to top right - Bold Sentiment/Your choice (hearts)/Die-Cut.

I got the Xoxo die last year and thought it would make fun vday cards. It's by Lawn Fawn. I added my fave Hero Arts Tiny Hearts Background stamp, I am surprised that this stamp is not worn out, as I got it in 2018 from a Jenn Shurkus destash! I used Altenew Pink Diamond ink. The cute little Love Cupids by Mama Elephant work so well here, I love this set I've had it since 2023 and it was NBUS!! The sentiment stamp is my fave vday sentiment stamp by Avery Elle from their Peacock set that I have had since 2019.

I made a bunch of these in time for Valentine's Day, as they were so fun and easy to make.

We can't wait to see which row you use, and pop over to Retro Rubber, and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends March 7th.

Don't forget to tell us the age of your stamp, that is part of the fun of our challenge, and please only enter 5 challenges including Retro Rubber.

Cx

Retro Rubber Blog Challenge #227 - Colour Challenge..

 

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

This time we have a fun colour challenge for you.

I loved working with these colours.

I saw an idea by Susie Moore using the set by Pink Fresh Studio 'Birds & Bows' that I have had since 2018. So I thought I would CASE it. Mine is a bit different as I stuck to the colour palette for the challenge and I used less bows!

I added a cake from Ellen Hutson's 'Wish Big' set - another one from 2018. The sentiment is by Mama Elephant from 'Mixed Birthday Sentiments'.

I love how it came out and it was fun to CASE a card.

Show us your interpretation of the sketch and pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends April 5th.

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 #212 - Anything Goes

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge. Can you believe it is August already?! And today is my Momma's birthday!

It's everyone's fave 'Anything Goes'.

I have had the MFT 'Martini's on Me' set since 2013 and I can clearly remember thinking 'should I spend this much money on a small set'. LOL now 10 years later and so much use, I think we can agree it was a great investment.

It recently got a new lease of life, as I got these Mama Elephant 'Birthday Messages' (2021) and they have perfect sentiments for this set, including the one I used here.

The cards are so simple, just stamp, colour and mount onto the card blank. I gave one of them to a friend and she loved it. I think these will be becoming a staple in my birthday card box.

What are you going to dig out of the archives? Don't forget to pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends August 11th.

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 Blog Challenge - #191 - Sketch Challenge...

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

We have a sketch for you this time.

You know how much I love a sketch!

It took me a minute to decide how I wanted to interpret the sketch. Then I remembered that I have this awesome star coverplate die by Mama Elephant. I die-cut it, added acetate to the back, and created a shaker!

I added the super cute and fun 'Little Agenda Dinos' by Mama Elephant that I have had since 2020. The sentiment is a mix of companies and I think it worked really well and the whole card ended up as a fun interpretation of the sketch.

Here is a little close-up for you.

Show us your interpretation of the sketch. Don't forget to pop over to Retro Rubber, and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends September 23rd.

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 #182 - Flower Power....

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

We have a 'flower power' theme for you this time.

I love flower stamps and I am sure that I have way too many of them!

I dug out one of my all-time fave stamp sets by MFT - Large Desert Bouquet that I have had since 2016, it is my default set when I want impactful flowers. Weirdly there are no leaf dies, so I used a freebie die. The flowers were stamped with Altenew Inks.

The background was one from my stash, I like to make backgrounds and keep them for using when I need inspiration and don't know where to start. It is a Clearly Besotted stencil with Distress Stain used through it.

I love these little sentiments by Mama Elephant (Simple Sentiments), they come with their own dies and I cut this one in half so it worked better on my card.

I used this as a thank you card, it felt like a lovely way to say thanks!

Which of your many flower stamps will you use?  Also, pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends May 20th.

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

Fusion Card Challenge - Valentine Cupcake...

Hey,

Welcome to another fantastic Fusion Card Challenge.

Such a fantastic gallery for our last challenge, I look forward to seeing what you do with this one 'Valentine Cupcake'. As always both the sketch and the inspiration image are awesome.

Which will you try?

I loved both, so I fused them!

I love cake, so I was totally going to use a cake stamp on my card! But which one?! 

Well, I decided to go with this super cute mini cupcake stamp by Unity Stamp Co, I think I got it fwp, which is always nice. I stamped the lines using Creative Expressions 'Build a Background' set - which is a very versatile set and was a gift from my best friend JT. I decided to watercolour the cupcake and added a little bit of bling to it. I am a big fan of corrugated card stock and it was fun to use a piece of it here, to add some texture. The sentiment is by Mama Elephant 'Birthday Messages' I didn't even realise I had this until I went looking for a cake sentiment!

Make sure you check out all the rest of the inspiration by the DT over at the Fusion challenge blog, and play along with your own creation! When playing along you may use the sketch OR the photo to inspire your makes. OR, if you are feeling adventurous, you can fuse them together (see what I did there!).

Can't wait to see your makes. 

Challenge ends on February 15th.

Cx

Fusion Card Challenge - Crayons...

Hey,

Welcome to another fantastic Fusion Card Challenge.

This time we have a 'crayon' theme for you.As always both the sketch and the inspiration image are awesome.

You know I love to fuse the sketch and the inspiration image. So that is what I did here.

This card was made in the weirdest circumstances.. I am in the middle of packing for the big move to Tampa (from NYC) and my craft room is pretty much packed, so I had to improvise LOL.

The solid colour strips were actually coloured using Copics (including the sentiment banner) and the awesome crayon clutching Bunny is from Mama Elephant's 'Little Bunny Agenda' set, but I packed it (doh!) and so my friend kindly stamped and cut him out for me!! The patterned strip of paper was a scrap that I kept to one side and ended up fitting my colour scheme here.

The Happy Birthday stamp honestly, no word of a lie was on my craftroom floor LOL! Handy, but it also means I am not sure who it is by!

Hope you like this cute little card.

Make sure you check out all the rest of the inspiration by the DT over at the Fusion challenge blog, and play along with your own creation! When playing along you may use the sketch OR the photo to inspire your makes. OR, if you are feeling adventurous, you can fuse them together (see what I did there!).

Can't wait to see your makes. 

Challenge ends on August 31st.

Cx

Retro Rubber Challenge #157 Time to get your Sketch on...

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

We have a sketch for you this time, created by me!

You know how much I love a sketch!

I actually can't provide a link to the stamp I used here, as it was a free gift from a Mama Elephant event in 2016 and I couldn't actually make it and my friend Lisette gave me hers, as she knows how much I love a monster!

I love this stencil cloud technique (stencil is by MFT and I have it in both sizes) - it is getting some serious overuse LOL. 

Here I stamped and masked my Yeti - I am a big fan of masking and then I blended the clouds in. I decided at the last minute to add the stars and little birds, but it worked out fine. The sketch is so simple I just used little scraps of patterned paper and an enamel dot to complete my card.

I'm crushing on this card a teeny bit!

Show us your interpretation of the sketch and pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends May 7th

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 #154 Anything Goes...

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge.

This time it is everyone's fave - Anything Goes!

By now you are fully aware of my love of Monster stamps. I am a very lucky girl, because all my crafty friends know this and I am always being sent Monster stamps by them. As yet I do not have a single duplicate - just how many Monster stamps are there?! So generally for a anything goes challenge, I dig out a neglected Monster stamp!

You also know I am a fan of creating my own background and I love this Mama Elephant 'Monster Jam' set and the little Monster with the tambourine is my fave, so I created a background using just him! I coloured them all using Copics and Sakura Gelly Roll Starburst glitter pens.

The sentiment is from the set and it's pretty small, so it didn't cover too much of my fun background.

What will you dig out of the archives? Pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends March 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

Beep Beep!!

 

Hey,

So my Godson passed his driving test last year!

I wanted to send him a little card.

For some reason the phrase 'beep beep' makes me double over with laughter - I have no idea why!

I kept the card super simple and used the awesome Flora & Fauna 'Driving to the Holidays' set paired with a Mama Elephant 'Occasional Labels' stamp.

I thought it would be fun to stamp the car in red, as it reminded me of one I used to tool around in with my friend (who his mother knows) when I was younger!

Cx

Fusion Card Challenge - Purple Night...

Hey,

I'm back with another awesome challenge for the Fusion Challenge.

This time we have a Purple Night theme for you - alongside the sketch.

Which will you try?

I loved both the sketch and the inspiration image, so I fused them!

I just loved the purple, so I used purple papers to build half of my card. The dark/blackness at the bottom of the inspiration image works so well with the purple that I used a piece of black card stock for the other side of the sketch.

I heat embossed the sentiment from one of my all-time fave stamp sets by Mama Elephant 'Friend Indeed', it also comes with the large friend die and I die-cut that out of purple sparkly vinyl! I have all this great sparkly vinyl that a friend gave me and it works really well on cards!

To finish it off I added some bling here and there.

I love how it came out, I thought that sketch might be trixsy, but it was super easy.

Make sure you check out all the rest of the inspiration by the DT over at the Fusion challenge blog, and play along with your own creation! When playing along you may use the sketch OR the photo to inspire your makes. OR, if you are feeling adventurous, you can fuse them together (see what I did there!).

Can't wait to see your makes. 

The challenge ends on October 27th.

Cx

Retro Rubber Challenge #145 Tic Tac Toe...

Hey,

Welcome to another fun Retro Rubber challenge - OCTOBER already!! 

This year is racing by, not sure if that is good or bad, given everything that has happened.

You know we LOVE a Tic Tac Toe board! So here is our final one for 2020!

This was a bit of a no-brainer for me, show me the word metallic and I am SOLD.. LOL.

I went with the top row - yellow/one word/metallics.

Several years ago I bought a Studio Calico paper clearance box and it was a magical thing! All the papers I used here are from that box! Including the glittery paper - which I am counting as my metallic, because it's gold!

I die-cut all the papers with my stitched square dies by Lawn Fawn. The scripty thanks die is also by Lawn Fawn and I die-cut it twice, once in yellow foam and once in the pretty paper you see. The foam piece is underneath, to pop it up - much easier to do this, than cut a bunch of tiny little foam pieces...

I added the cute little Mama Elephant Monkey holding presents, he is from 'Little Monkey Agenda', this was given to me as a gift by a friend early in 2019.

I sent this card to a friend already to say thanks for something and she said she wants more 'Mini Monkey' cards LOL.

Which row are you going to use? Make sure to pop over to Retro Rubber and get inspired by the things the DT have made.

Challenge ends October 16th.

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

Playdate: Nom Nom Kitties..

Hey,

A couple of weeks ago JT and I had an EPIC playdate, it was the weekend that we should have been together in Atlantic City for our 5th Annual craft adventure weekend!

Obvs due to the pandemic we had to make do with Skype instead and it was totally fine, there was much laughter, gossip, booze and some card making LOL.

We started out with a recipe - fave animal, black & white, yellow, alphas - both of us struggled with the alpha part, so we cheated and left that out. My card is the top left one.

I had a clean of the craft room the night before the playdate and found the Nom Nom Kitties by Mama Elephant that I had forgotten about and never inked!! So I decided they would be my stamp set of choice during the playdate.

For our second card, we used an old card of JT's as a layout/sketch example and my card is top right.

Finally, the third card was just a free for all and as I had picked up the leftover yellow ink with a tag, I used that and the remaining Kitty and Sushi tray - this one went to JT along with an envelope of stuff I have had stashed for her.

All 3 cards came out so well and who knew I could find so many uses for Kitties eating ramen and sushi!

Better yet, it was a fabulously long, silly playdate. It wasn't AC, but lets be frank, our livers and our wallets are eternally grateful for virtual v face to face!

Cx

CASology: Just Be Claws..

Hey,

Happy Monday.

Hope you are all staying home, safe and well.

I loved my friend Jen's take on the current CASology challenge and it inspired me to play along.

I actually have a lot of friends and family (including Hubby) that are Cancerians AND because I love Crabs it felt like a natural fit to go down that road.

ALSO my beloved Big Shot gave up last Monday and so I am still waiting for a large format die-cutter, so everything I make that needs die-cutting has to be able to go through my smaller We R Memory keepers mini die-cutter.

The crab is from the Mama Elephant 'Cosmic Stars' set and I added the fun sentiment from the Pink & Main 'Oh Crab!' set.

I think the bright pink card blank helps make Mr Crab stand out and I couldn't resist adding teeny tiny googly eyes, because we all love googly eye right?

Cx

WOW!!

Hey Happy Friday,

What a week!

No posts from me, it's been a touch busy!

But today I am pretty happy to be sharing this awesome card that is a CASE of this wonderful card by the amazing Julie Ebersole.

Amazing card right?!

I used spotty Clearscraps stencil with Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide. The WOW was cut from the super large alpha dies I bought with my Christmas money from my in-laws.

Weirdly I do not have an Elephant in my stash, so I pulled out the Pink Fresh Studio 'Party Animal' set and decided that a Giraffe would be perfect here.

Whenever I hand stamp the Mama Elephant sentiment banners, I wish that I had used a misti - never gonna learn right..

Anyway, it still came out really well and I LOVE it. I need to make more of them.

Have a great weekend. Stay Home.

Cx

Squares and Cupcakes..

Hey,

Happy Monday!

Hope you had a nice weekend and are continuing to social distance.

I bought a great set by Mama Elephant during the Black Friday sale 'Cupcake Wishes' - I love that all the bits of the cupcake come individually, so you can build the cupcakes any way you like.

I was also super excited that it came with number candles - how awesome is that!

I made x3 cards - using the amazing Taylored Expressions masking template. I bought the square one and it comes with x2 templates - one with x4 squares and one with x3 squares. They make masking and blending super easy. I love the ombre blending I was able to do on x2 of the cards.

One of the cards was for my friend's daughter who turned 2. Here is a close-up - 

How cute is this! And look at all that sparkle! The background sparkle is from a shimmer spray and the sparkle on the cupcake is from the Sakura Starburst gel pens.

Cx

TicTacToe: Thanks for Always Being There...

Hey,

Happy Saturday!

Hope you are all safe and well, wherever you are.

Today I am going to be having a skype playdate with JT, I think we both need a distraction, because this is not the normal WFH situation!

I am playing along with the current TicTacToe challenge..

The current board was created by my Retro Rubber teammate LeAnne and randomly, I didn't look at her card until after I created mine - wouldn't you know it, we chose the same row!!

Blue, Umbrella, Designer Paper.

I chose x2 great Mama Elephant sets to work with. The sentiment and the Bunny with the Flower Umbrella are from the collab with Simon Says Stamp from Stamptember 2017 'Rain or Shine'. The cute Bunny holding a cupcake is from their 'Little Bunny Agenda' set.

Pretty simple card really, I die-cut a circle from the gorgeous gingham paper by American Crafts and figured out where I was going to position my bunnies and then stamped the raindrops. I popped the bunnies and the sentiment up using foam tape.

Such a cute card that will be nice to send to a friend.

I love the fact that my chosen umbrella is a bit unconventional, but I guess if I was a bunny, it would make sense to use a flower as an umbrella right?!

Have a great weekend.

Cx

Christmas Cards 2019: Whimsical Winter...

Hey,

I wanted to show you another set of fun Christmas cards I made two weeks ago.

This time slightly more elaborate..

Two weeks ago the girls (aka Craftgang) and I went to the Mama Elephant birthday bash at the Westbeth Center - major fangirling moment for me, as I got to meet Kathy Rac, my colouring heroine and the creator of the Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge.

I bought the fab Whimsical Winter set that I used for these cards at the event, it was on super bargain sale WITH THE DIES!!!

I was making Christmas cards over Labor Day and used texture paste through the Clearly Besotted 'Snow Day' stencil for a snow effect and as I had the paste and the stencil out, I made a few extra - smart.

So the backgrounds I used for these x3 cards were the extra ones. I really must remember to do this more often.

As I have mentioned before, I do the prep first and the fun stuff later - meh. To prep these cards, I stamped and die-cut the trees, the Deers, Squirrels and Robins first. Then I affixed my backgrounds to the card blanks.

I coloured all the stamped elements and started arranging them on the x3 cards, so I would know where to stamp the sentiment, before I affixed everything down.

I think they came out really well, there was a fair amount of prep, but the outcome was worth it.

Fun times ahead, it is my birthday on Saturday and my Goddaughter Amy arrives tonight to spend the weekend celebrating with me..it's going to be interesting with the crutches and the boot!

Cx

Not quite Florida Playdate..

Hey,

As you know I didn't make it to Florida over Labor Day weekend.

But I did manage to host a not quite Florida playdate at my house on the Sunday.

This meant that we could use the kits we had pre-made.

Basically the plan was that each of us (x5 of us, including Ava in Florida) would kit x2 cards (or projects) for the others to make.

The photo above shows the x8 cards/projects we made on Sunday.

I'll walk you through them starting top left with my cards :)

I was the most efficient of the group and I had sent my kits to Florida already..so I had to make a couple of quick cards for the girls to make on Sunday! I decided to put my Pinterest board 'Look What I Made' to use. And it came up good, with x2 straightforward cards for the girls.

I used the Avery Elle 'Sea-Prise' set for my pufferfish card, the girls were horrified when they realised it was one candle that had to be stamped multiple times, so there were a lot of variations on this one.
The Unicorn card is by Pink Fresh Studio and uses all the stamps and dies from their 'Unicorn Dreams' set.

Moving clockwise to top right, these cards were Cheiron's kits. I loved her Toucan card - using Flora & Fauna stamps so much that I CASEd it (coming soon).
The floral card, used Altenew stamps and was fun to watercolour and we got to use Altenew markers, which are amazing and I do want!

Bottom right, kits by Tiff. She challenged us a bit, by getting us to make a fun envelope. Sadly I dropped the Panda stamp after stamping him, so I have a big black line across him, but hey as I always say, it's handmade, you gotta expect a little oopsie here and there. The envelope board was by We R Memory Keepers, stamps and stencils by Simon Says Stamp.
The Fox card used all the techniques and looks AMAZING!! Background stamp is by Simon Says Stamp, Fox and sentiment stamps by Rabbit Hole Designs. I love RHD stamps, the caffeinated range is hilarious.

Finally bottom left, kits by Lisette. The first card with the girl was fun, I have never ever stamped in a lighter ink and then coloured over it, very clever and way out of my comfort zone. The girl is by Picket Fence Studios, not sure who the dots are by. I love this card and the snarky stickers really worked well here. The Mermaid card uses the super cute Mama Elephant Mermaids and I loved adding the chunky glitter 'sea'.

The best bit about making all these things, were all the techniques we used - masking, heat embossing, watercolouring, blending, colour plucking. It was a masterclass in all the things that we have learnt over the years (mainly from our resident teacher Cheiron).

A fun playdate was had by all and we all left with gifts and 7 cards/1 envelope.
It wasn't quite Florida but it certainly made up for it.

Cx