Going, going, gone! This Week’s Ways to Use it Challenge!

Only one month left before the huge list of Stampin Up’s retirement sets is gone!  Lots of my faves are on that list…some really great sets. I’m sad to see them go but I just have to think, Stampin Up must have a really great upcoming line-up just waiting to be revealed! I’ve seen a sneak peek of the new hostess sets…way too cute!

This week the challenge is to find Way’s to Use the retiring sets. For those of you who are demos, get a little more use of them before they retire, add a little inspiration to the gallery, maybe even convince a few people that they really do need that set! 😉 If you would like to see the list of retiring stamp sets, here it is … Going Out in Style. If you dont’ have any of these sets, you may still play along by using another company’s retirement list sets. Sorry I don’t have any links for those! To play along, visit WT115. Everyone is welcome!

Spring Smile

Now for this card, I did get a little off track on the challenge! LOL For some strange reason, I though that Lovely as a Tree was on the retirement list! NOT! I had this card half made last night and there was a LOT going on. I just did not have time to start again. So I salvaged it and made it work! My favorite French Script Background stamp is retiring…sniff, sniff. Love that one. So versatile! Also retiring is Simple Sayings 2. Works for me! I squeezed them into my design and voila…a WT115 card! 🙂 Not originally what I had intended but it works!

This card was inspired by the new gorgeous Primas I bought from Jacksonbelle. I had brought them upstairs to my desk. I still had this Tres Jolie paper on my desk and it looked perfect with the flower. Hmmm…off to find a stamp set. I came across Lovely as a Tree (which as I told you previously, thought was retiring) and thought it would be interesting to pair the cherry blossoms up with the trees and also make a more feminine card, giving it a fresh new look.

For the trees, I stamped them with Black Stazon on watercolor paper. I love how easy watercoloring is on the paper. I pulled out the cool Caribbean, Regal Rose and Old Olive colors from the print and worked them into the image. After allowing to dry, I distressed the edges with my Heidi Swapp Edge Distresser. Cute little inexpensive tool that bought last fall. So much more affordable than some tools I’ve seen.

Quick Tip: Speed up drying time when you are watercoloring by drying your image with a heat gun.

After matting the image with Chocolate Chip, I layered the background paper and adhered to a 5.25″ square card base of Old Olive. Now this is the point where I stopped and went downstairs to check on the kids. I saw my catalogue that I had inserted a couple print-outs of the retiring list into and took a peek. Yikes! No Lovely as a Tree! I frantically scanned the list. Oh! I found French Script…sentiment…Simple Sayings 2. OK..great…I’m good.

I worked the French Script into the design by stamping it in Black Stazon on a sheet of acetate. For the sentiment, I inked up just the smile part of the “you make me smile” stamp and added it to the bottom. Finally, I added on my Cherry Blossom Prima with Crystal Brad center and to tied it all together with a piece of gorgeous huge ivory ric rak. It is by Creative Impressions and I bought it at my local scrapbook store, The Scrapbook Studio.