Atomic Retro - 'Wallpaper swatch'

 Retro Diamond background with Atomic Retro shapes.

I love 50's retro shapes and colours and was very happy to see Tim Holtz release a Vault set of dies that included Retro Atomic shapes.

I found one of Tim's stamps that gave me a great background, used a punch for the circles and die cut a couple of the shapes in black. It was quite simple really and gave me a lovely retro wallpaper swatch.

xx

Supplies from Country View Crafts

TH stamps - Diamonds CMS 242

TH Distress Inks - Wild Honey, Evergreen Bough, Candied Apple, Ground Espresso

TH Sizzix dies - Vault Atomic Retro

 I took advantage of being at Susan's - Country View Crafts - for the weekend and bought a fabulous new set of Vault dies that included this gorgeous little clipboard. After an eventful Saturday I sat down Sunday morning to make this little beauty, 

Having die-cut the clipboard pieces from kraft and black card I made up the clipboard.............

............ then used distress inks to make a background 

.............and to finish it off I added a paper doll and some snippets. 

I can see this clipboard being used to make toppers for some of my panels.

Supplies

TH Sizzix dies - Vault Noteworthy

Th Snippets

Flowers CVC March #1

 Floral Outlines with pressed grasses

A card for the Country View Crafts Challenge for March. Combining both Tim Holtz and Alson Bomber stamps was a dream. They both design stamp sets that I love but for different reasons. Tim has vintage and natural images and Alison uses her own drawings and sketches of nature and botanicals etc for her sets.

Take card, paint over a layer of white paint, leave to dry.  Dip in puddles of green and pink distress inks to create a lightly coloured distress background.

Use the grass stamp to create more depth for the focal point.

On another piece of card stamp the floral outline in brown distress ink and watercolour with distress inks.            Cut around the image.

Stamp the words on white card with archival ink and dabble some inks around the words.

Put the card together.

Here I ran into a time consuming problem.I wanted to add more to the stamped images.

I first diecut some white leaves, blended with the green inks randomly over them but they didn't look right, I stamped and fussy cut some of the pressed grasses stamps, I wasn't happy with those either so I stamped the floral outline twice more and watercoloured them and cut off some of the leaves and buds - so much better.

xx

Supplies

TH Stamps - Floral Outlines CMS430

Alison Bomber stamps - PaperArtsy EAB40 Pressed Grasses, EAB1 (words)

TH Distress Inks - Age Mahogany, Saltwater Taffy, Worn Lipstick. Rustic Wilderness, Bundled Sage, Forest Moss Ground Espresso

Ranger Archival Ink - Coffee

Watts Gallery Sketch Saturday March 2025

Watts Gallery, nestled in the Surrey hills on the 

North Downs Way

Had an amazing day at Watts Gallery today attending a workshop that I thought was going to be just about sketching but actually turned out to be an brilliant mixed media session. Kerry, our tutor, took inspiration from the gallery and 'The Spirit of Charleston' exhibition, building sketchbook pages with a variety of studies influenced by the decorative Bloomsbury style. This style is completely new to me and outside of my comfort zone but I still enjoyed using a number of photographs, Kerry provided, to do some pieces of my own. We experimented with watercolour paints, acrylic paints, oil pastels, watercolour pencils, gelli plate, a technique new to me called Dry Point using a water based oil paint, so here are all my designs and a couple of the photos I used for inspiration.

Dry Point

Painting on a gelli plate.

Everyone's finished art.

xx

Constructing Vintage Photo Cabinet Card Collage

Gelli printing, stamping and mixed media

A gelli print, a stamp and the idea of creating a mixed media cabinet card brought this project to fruition. 

Played with Alison's poppy stamps on the gelli plate using Fresco Finish paints and ended up with a lovely design that I enhanced with a brown drawing pen. I cut it in half ........

...... and used one half as a wallpaper for the photograph, edged with a dark flowery paper that makes it stand out more.

I stamped the corners of the main card.

Next, gathered items to bring the design together including some embellishments, but knowing me these could change as I move things around to get a design I'm happy with.

Eventually happy with the design and the idea.

Supplies

TH Stamps - Victorian CMS300

Alison Bomber- EAB37 Poppy

TH _ Found Relatives

PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paints - colours not recorded, probably Buff, Toffee and Snowflake