'L' IS FOR LIFE

What a great challenge over at Just Add Ink - Just Add 'L'.  Looking through my stamp sets I found just the set I wanted to use - a Visible Image set I'd recently bought called Just Be Happy.  I knew it would be a great one for my new journal I'm working on this year - so my L for this challenge is Life.

I started out by cutting my cardstock to 5" x 5" - I added some Distress Oxide Ink in Old Paper and then using a Visible Image stencil called Atomic Flower I went over it in Distress Oxide Frayed Burlap.  

The tree and the leaves and the Touch Life sentiment is from another Visible Image stamp set called Tree of Life. I stamped the tree in Ranger Black Archival and the leaves in Ranger Archival Library Green. I coloured them in with Distress Ink in Mowed Lawn and Crushed Olive and added some Tri Spectrum glitter pen to give them a shine.  I used the same archival green for the sentiment and coloured it in with Distress.  I edged the card with Mowed Lawn and Peacock Feathers.  I layered the card onto some black card stock. 

I'm also adding this into  Addicted To Stamps - Stencils/Die Cuts - I used a stencil 

SWEET STAMPIN - NAUTICAL THEME/PIRATES

Our challenge this week for Sweet Stampin is Pirates/Nautical theme. I don't have any pirate type stamps and didn't really fancy doing a punch art card so went with the nautical theme.  I decided to try the Retiform Technique as I haven't done that in a while and used two retired Stampin Up sets - High Tide and Wetlands.  

For my inks I used Tim Holtz Distress Oxide in Salty Ocean  and SU Night of Navy.    The retiform technique is quite fun as it can be different everytime you try it.  There is a touch of glimmer on the water as I added some Glossy Accents to it to make it shimmer.

 

MALE CARDS

I've been playing with my new Cardio stamp sets again - such great stamps that allow you to make a scene but I don't have enough of them yet. However, I chose just one from a set called Garden Hosedown for my card for two challenges - Watercooler Wednesday #WWC230 who wants male cards and Addicted to CAS #163 which had the challenge word of Heat.

I started off my sponging the background with some Tim Holtz inks - Bundled Sage, Barn Door, Worn Lipstick and Fossilized Amber.  I then stamped the BBQ with Black Momento ink and added the flames in the red and yellow inks.  The smoke stamp was inked off SU Basic Gray.  The sentiments come from Clearly Besotted.  This was then simply added to a white background to keep it CAS.