Stampin' Up! Timeless Tidings, Winter Woods and Wishing You Well Retiform

Salutations on this Saturday to all my peeps. I am thrilled to be the guest designer today at Christmas Card Throwdown and also thrilled that you stopped by.

Masking is one of my favorite techniques because it is always how I do my retiform cards. Take a look see...

My card base is Merry Merlot and I did my masking on a piece of Whisper White. I used Cherry Cobbler and Garden Green for my inks.

How did I create this? I'm so glad you asked! I laid my stamps, from Timeless Tidings and Wishing You Well, where I wanted them on my Whisper White mat. Then I took a ruler and pencil and drew the lines where each would be separated from the other. Remove the stamps, but remember where you will be placing them! 

I took large sticky notes, working on one section at a time, and laid the sticky edges where the pencil lines were. For example, where the wreath is, I placed one sticky note across the bottom of the section and one on the right edge of that section. I sponged the section more heavily along the edges and lighter towards the center using Cherry Cobbler. Be careful if you reuse that same sticky note with the next color as it can transfer. Ask me how I know! You just keep repeating that same process with each section, then you stamp your images. I try to use no more than two or three colors for sponging and stamping but you can do whatever you want...it will be your card after all! 

Between the wreath, tree and holly images, I left a little space so you could visualize what it looked like not having the mask right on the line. I kind of liked that look so I am leaving it that way.

I added pearls, red rhinestones and a gold star for embellishments.

The inside of my card is very simple...

I thought the sentiment was appropriate for the corners on the front. It came from Timeless Tidings and is stamped full strength in Garden Green. I stamped the tree from Winter Woods by stamping off three times.

Here are pics of other cards I created using this technique. 

     

If you have any questions, please give me a holler. I hope you will also visit the talented Design Team at  52 Christmas Card Throwdown. It's a wonderful place to play AND you need to get working on your Christmas cards if you haven't already!

See you real soon!