Some More Good-Byes for Color Throwdown and Freshly Made Sketches

There's only a little over two weeks left for all of the retiring products, so I wanted to get a few more fond farewells in before the deadline. Today I'm featuring the beautiful English Garden Designer Series Paper, the Kraft & White Corrugated Paper, and the Six-Sided Sampler Stamp Set, all of which will be leaving us for good after May 31st.

These were the perfect products to use for two great challenges! The colour palette of this card was based on the Challenge Swatch from Color Throwdown:

Doesn't that just make you want to head off to Greece right now? I spent some lovely days in Greece on the island of Naxos, back in the seventies! I'd love to go back.

The layout is from Freshly Made Sketches Challenge sketch:

Take a closer look:

• English Garden Designer Series Paper was certainly made for this challenge, especially this particular design, which also just happens to be my favourite from the whole set, but take a look at the other designs in the pack: (Unfortunately, it is now out of stock!)

• One of the retiring products that I'm uber distressed about is the Kraft & White Corrugated Paper. I LOVE that stuff, but then you know I'm all about texture, right? It gives amazing texture to your products! Why didn't we order more of it, so it wouldn't be retired??

You can still order this stuff if you hurry, but after May 31st it is gone, gone, gone!

• The sentiment is from the retiring Six-Sided Sampler, and adorable set featuring hexagons:

This should be available until the new catalogue comes out.

• The butterfly was created with layers of Night of Navy cardstock, die cut with the Bold Butterfly framelits, Vellum die cut with the Butterflies Thinlits, and Soft Sky, die cut with another of the Bold Butterfly framelits.

 Click on each photo to take you to the original post.

If you would like to order any of these retiring products, you can shop online anytime at my On-Line Store, or send me an email and I will process your order for you.

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.

Product List

Six-Sided Sampler Wood Stamp Set [130953]	Six-Sided Sampler Clear Stamp Set [130956]	English Garden Designer Series Paper [138440]	Kraft And White Corrugated Paper [138317]	Vellum 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101856]
Night Of Navy 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100867]	Soft Sky 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [131203]	Crumb Cake 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [120953]	Night Of Navy Classic Stampin' Pad [126970]	Linen Thread [104199]
Bold Butterfly Framelits Dies [138135]	Butterflies Thinlits Dies [137360]	Pearl Basic Jewels Embellishments [119247]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]
Glue Dots [103683]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]

Watercolour Wings for Freshly Made Sketches

I watched a video tutorial yesterday done by Brian King, using a technique he calls the Smashing Technique. He claims that this technique is all over the internet, but my search only turned up his tutorial, so I'm thinking that he may have come up with it himself. It's not really that much different than collage stamping because you use repeated stamped images layered over each other to create a custom background. Anyway, it was fun trying it out and I wanted to show you the result of my experiments.

This card features both the Watercolour Wings stamp set from the Annual Catalogue and Timeless Textures stamp set from the Occasions catalogue. I used the layout from Freshly Made Sketches Challenge this week:

I know I didn't have to use a butterfly for the shape from the sketch, but looking at it reminded me that I had not used the beautiful Watercolour Wings set for a long time and it was long overdue!

• So I used images from Timeless Textures to create the background. I inked up one stamp in Sahara Sand ink and repeatedly stamped the image at various angles all over the paper, making sure to stamp off once before stamping on my panel. I used the floral flourish image to do the same, using Watermelon Wonder ink. I needed to stamp off twice before stamping on my panel because otherwise the colour would be too intense for a background.
• I used Watermelon Wonder again for the first two steps of a 3 step stamping approach for the butterfly from Watercolour Wings. The third step I used Versamark, adding Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder and heat setting it with the Heat Tool. I also embossed the sentiment frame from the Awesomely Artistic stamp set in Gold and die cut the shape using a framelit from the Project Life Cards and Labels collection. The sentiment itself is from Watercolour Wings.
• The Bold Butterfly Framelits allowed me to die cut the butterfly shape and you can get them bundled with Watercolour Wings and save 15% over the cost of purchasing each separately.
• I used White Corrugated Paper for the cross panel and added some of the beautiful Watermelon Wonder Stitched Satin Ribbon for accent.

I was rushing to finish this last night because I was planning to watch the last episode of Downton Abbey! I can't believe it's over now! What will I do with my Sunday nights? Any other fans of Downton out there? How did you feel about the ending?

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.


Product List

Awesomely Artistic Wood-Mount Stamp Set [138694]	Awesomely Artistic Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139950]	Timeless Textures Wood-Mount Stamp Set [140514]	Timeless Textures Clear-Mount Stamp Set [140517]	Watercolor Wings Photopolymer Stamp Set [139424]
Watercolor Wings Photopolymer Bundle [140232]	Kraft And White Corrugated Paper [138317]	Shimmery White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101910]	Watermelon Wonder 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [138334]	Tip Top Taupe 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [138336]
Versamark Pad [102283]	Sahara Sand Classic Stampin' Pad [126976]	Watermelon Wonder Classic Stampin' Pad [138323]	Tip Top Taupe Classic Stampin' Pad [138325]	Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder [109129]
Heat Tool [129053]	Watermelon Wonder 1" Stitched Satin Ribbon [140580]	Gold Metallic Thread [138401]	Bold Butterfly Framelits Dies [138135]	Project Life Cards & Labels Framelits [135707]
Big Shot [113439]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]