Happy Retirement

Hi everyone.  Today I'm sharing a card I made for a friend who recently retired.  I have two friends that I used to work with years ago, both retiring at the same time, so you will be seeing another retirement card soon. :)

I made a CAS Mixed Media card.  The flower is from STAMPlorations and I got it as a free stamp along with one of my purchaes.  It's currently out of stock as it was so popular, but will be back soon as an addition to Shery's stamp inventory.  Click HERE to see.

I stamped the flower onto mixed media paper with archival (waterproof) black ink.  Then I added bits of colour with my distress markers, blending the colours out with a water brush.  I love how it turned out.  I used both orange and pink which created lots of tones of colour and depth.  I fussy-cut the flower and set it aside.  The background splats were stamped in Delicata Gold (my favourite gold ink) and then the flower was popped up over top.  The sentiment was stamped onto a banner and popped up for added dimension.

Once the card was finished, I thought the flower looked a little dull against the gold splats, so pressed some gold ink onto my craft mat, picked up the colour with my water brush and sloshed some of it over top of the flower.  It added some shimmer and sparkle ... love how it turned out.  Close-up picture below that hopefully gives you a better view.

I'm entering this into several STAMPlorations challenges that are running for January.  First up, the brand spanking new CAS challenge.  I didn't use the option this time.

Also entering this into STAMPlorations January Theme & Sketch Challenge ... my card is definitely CAS and looks a bit like the sketch ...

  

And also entering STAMPlorations Anything Goes challenge, as well as the Mixed Media Card Challenge - New Beginnings.  The mixed media on my card is stamps + ink, plus watercolouring, splats, fussy-cut and popped up flower and popped up sentiment --- hope it qualifies. :)

  

And last, but not least), entering the Snippets Playground to share and have some fun with Di and the gang.

Thanks for dropping by for a visit!

Stamps:  Helenium Large (STAMPlorations); Teeny Tiny Wishes (SU!); Gorgeous Grunge (SU!)
Paper:  White card base (Neenah); Mixed Media paper (Strathmore)
Ink:  Black Archival (Ranger); Distress Markers: Ripe Persimmon; Picked Raspberry, Shabby Shutters, Peeled Paint, Brushed Corduroy, Vintage Photo (Tim Holtz); Delicata Gold (Tsukineko)
Accessories & Tools:  water brush

Challenges:
STAMPlorations January CAS Challenge
STAMPlorations January Theme & Sketch
STAMPlorations - Anything Goes
January Mixed Media Card Challenge - New Beginnings
Snippets Playground - Week 211