It seems lately that I've had several friends who are reaching that wonderful milestone in their careers-I'm talking about retirement! What an exciting time with so much to look forward to. The card I designed here is for a guy and since so many people look forward to traveling in their retirement, that's the theme I went with.
I chose a color scheme of Night of Navy, Sahara Sand, Copper & Watermelon Wonder. Watermelon Wonder is retired, but it's still a favorite of mine. Actually, there are several retired products used on this card that I find myself reaching for again and again. The bi-plane is part of a Sale-a-Bration stamp set called Sky is the Limit. I know a lot of pilots, so I use this stamp often!
"Adventure awaits" is from another retired stamp set with a travel theme called Places You'll Go.
This card is pretty straight-forward. The technique used to make the clouds look like they are behind the airplane is called masking, and it goes like this:
Begin with a 4" x 5'1/4" piece of Sahara Sand cardstock. Stamp the airplane and the large balloon (from Lift Me Up) using Night of Navy ink. The wingtip on the airplane is purposely stamped off the edge to give the illusion that it's flying right onto the page!
Stamp a second image of each onto a Post-It note and fussy-cut them out. The Post-It notes with adhesive all over them rather than just a strip at the top work best for this. Place the cut-outs over your stamped images.
Randomly stamp clouds (also from Lift Me Up) all over the page in Sahara Sand, overlapping both images and letting some of them hang off the edge of the cardstock.
Remove the Post-It notes and this is what you will see. Isn't that fun?
One of the smaller balloons is Night of Navy ink stamped on Watermelon Wonder cardstock; the other is Versamark stamped on Night of Navy cardstock and heat embossed with Copper Stampin' Emboss Powder. The banner shape is from the Banners for You stamp set. Because the greeting is a photopolymer stamp, I was able to shape it on the acrylic block to perfectly fit inside this banner, even though it was not made to fit it. I cut a second banner from Copper Foil, attached the two banners together and adhered them to the card front with Stampin' Dimensionals.
I didn't have a stamp with the sentiment I wanted for the card inside, so I created my own in Microsoft Word. The fonts I used are Lavanderia Regular for "Congratulations", and I used a Word Art shape to give it a soft arch. The font for everything else is AR Julian.
Places You'll Go Photopolymer Stamp Set
[141741]
Watermelon Wonder 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
[138334]
I've enjoyed sharing this project with you and I hope that you can use these ideas in your crafting!
Creatively,
Pat
