Guest Design Spot For Retro Rubber Challenge and Playing Tic-Tac-Toe!

flowers, Ocassions, Sympathy

Hello there friends!  I hope that you’ve had a great weekend and found some enjoyable moments for yourself!  I had a nice and cozy weekend with my hubby!

Today, I’m thrilled to share my post for the Retro Rubber Challenge Blog as I’ve been asked to do a guest design spot for their challenge!  Retro Rubber is known for their challenges in which they challenge you to pull out those neglected older stamps from your stash and use them!  (They ask that you use a stamp that is at least 1 year or older to enter).  For this particular challenge, they’re asking you to follow along with a fun Tic-Tac-Toe board.

For my card, I was going for a diagonal direction one way, but it ended up fitting with several different directions on this board!  LOL!  I just had fun playing I think:

(My card below utilizes the top row across, and diagonally in both directions!) Squares used for my card are:  green, twine, pattern paper, die cut or punch, sympathy and nature.

Vicki-RRCB127GDT-EHMondoHydrangea

Isn’t this such a pretty floral stamp?!  Hydrangeas are pretty much my fave all time flower!  The colors amaze me and I have a line of them in my backyard along my fence and look forward to seeing them bloom every year!  I take photos of them too!

Well I have this container sitting on a shelf in my stamp room where this particular stamp and die set is just “staring at me” awaiting for me to pull it out!  I didn’t realize that it was actually a 3 year old set until I pulled it out, but do you remember this Mondo Hydrangea from Ellen Hutson by Julie E?  Fell in love with it immediately, purchased it and think I may have used it one time!  I was excited about pulling it out to make my card for today as it’s one that I really love!

I started by heat embossing the image with some Brutus Monroe Gilded EP and then used my Clean Color Real Brush markers and a water brush pen to blend out the colors over the images.  I then used the Mondo Hydrangea coordinating dies to cut out all of the images.  I also took some vanilla cardstock to die cut the top border with the MFT Stitched Scallop Basic Edges die as well as cut it out along with the green pattern papers with the MFT A2 Stitched Rectangle STAX die.  These layers were attached over an A2 sized vanilla top folding card base.

I’ve used a sentiment from the Whimsy Stamps Furever in Our Hearts stamp set and heat embossed that over that vanilla die cut panel as well. (Adorable pet sympathy set to have on hand!)

The flowers were popped up over the design with foam tape, but before I attached the large hydrangea to the card, I took some metallic gold twine and tied a bow around the stem.  Lastly, I added some clear confetti sequins.

Vicki-RRCB127GDT-EHMondoHydrangea-close

Here’s a closer look at the watercolor I’ve done over the flower.  I don’t do this very often, but it’s always satisfying when I play around with it!  At first I thought it would be intimidating to color, but it’s really not.  I just added layers of watercolor as I wanted it to look.  You can really see where the EP shines on this!

I had thought about adding some glitter over it, but wanted to keep it soft since it’s a sympathy card.

Vicki-RRCB127GDT-EHMondoHydrangea-flat

It seems that I hardly ever have a sympathy card on hand when I need one, so this will be a great one to have on stand by for my collection.

Thanks for stopping by today and I’ll see you soon!

Other challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

  1.  Cute Card Thursday – Green
  2. Krafty Chicks – KCC491 All Occasions
  3. Crafty Catz– #490 Anything Goes + optional twist:  Flower Power

Published by *Vicki*

I'm so happy you found me! I love to share smiles with my handmade cards! I also enjoy papercrafts through art journaling, scrapooking and mixed media projects too! Thanks for stopping by!

Published

26 thoughts on “Guest Design Spot For Retro Rubber Challenge and Playing Tic-Tac-Toe!”

  1. Congrats on your guest design spot and what a pretty sympathy card this is! I love the hydrangea and how you colored it, and that angled die cut adds beautiful interest to this lovely sympathy card! It’s a very pretty one to add to your stash!

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  2. Congrats on your guest design spot! Your card is beautifully designed and your hydrangeas are lovely with your watercoloring. Hugs.

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  3. Beautiful card – I think I have an old Hero Arts (I think) similar stamp. I am sure this card will bring comfort to the recipient. I have “LOTS” of old stamps – may have to join this challenge.
    P.S. How do you keep you things like embellishments, punches, dies etc organized so that you know where they are. I spend more time looking for stuff I know I have but can’t find it is so frustrating. Hints welcome.

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    1. Thank you so much for your kind comments Shirley! I appreciate that! I also appeciate that you “think” I’m organized! LOL!! I’m not as organised as I’d LIKE to be, but in the future I hope to “update” my room with LOTS of storage tips that I can share in a video! 🙂 In the meantime, look at investing in specialty containters like for sequins, sponge daubers, Tim Holtz containers are nice and use them for other things than his own products. There are always nice plastic containers at craft stores for cheap…just browse the area for things that might work for your needs and if you’re on Pinterest, create a board just for that and look up “craft room storage” in your search! Good luck!

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  5. BIG BIG congrats to you on your GDT spot – so well deserved! Your cards are just enchanting! I love this gorgeous walk in the fresh spring garden card you’ve made -from the colors to your coloring! Just a vision! Now this is a challenge I can get behind, too – lots of over a year old stamps, lol! Hugs!

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  6. WOW Vicki, what a stunning card!! I love that Hydrangea image and your gorgeous watercoloring, the gold embossing is so elegant! Congrats on your GDT too!
    Hugs, Tammy

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  7. So excited to have you as our Guest Designer this week, Vicki! Your creations are always beautifully done and such a blessing! This will be a comfort to the recipient for sure. The watercoloring is so pretty, especially with the gold embossing! Happy to have you with us!

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  8. This is such a beautiful card! That hydrangea stamp has been on my Ellen Hutson wish list for ages and I’m going to have to move it over to my shopping cart! This is a fantastic layout and the embossing powder is perfect with this color palette! Very nice job!

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  11. The hydrangea is gorgeous, even more so for having been gold embossed then coloured so prettily. The layout is super too. Your guest design spot is so well deserved – thank you for playing along with us at Retro Rubber and for creating such a superb DT card.

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  14. So beautiful Vicki, I love the embossed image, it really pops!
    Many thanks for joining us at Cute Card Thursday this week!
    Debxx

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  17. Did I comment on this card yet? I don’t think so because I think I got distracted at the Retro Rubber blog. This is absolutely beautiful. I love the layout and the colors and it does make a lovely Sympathy card.

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  19. Congrats on your GDT position, Vicki. Your card is beautiful, escpecially your hydrangea.
    xxx Margreet

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  20. A beautiful Sympathy card- love the touch of gold on the leaves too- and the pretty die you used too. And, Congrats on your GDT spot!

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  21. Congratulations on guesting and what a stunner of a card. It is so pretty, wonderful design and such beautiful colours x.

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  23. Hello Vicki and thank you for being our Guest Designer this time over at RETRO RUBBER.
    Your card is gorgeous, I love the colors of this Hydrangea and what makes this card even more gorgeous is the gold embossing on this fabulous flower.
    Thank you for being our Guest Designer.
    Hugs.
    Maria/DT

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  24. Great to have you with us Vicki, I love how you have made such a difficult subject matter into the most gorgeous card! I LOVE that Hydrangea, it’s simply stunning. Hope to see you again in the gallery soon. Claire RR DT

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