Snowman Retiform Card by Crystal Cleveland

This technique is called Retiform it is a very vintage looking type card. It showcases several of your stamps. I have made several for the 4th of July, this one is for Christmas in July.  Since I used several of Maymay's snowmen sets for it, I decided to do it in shades of blue.

With this technique you use 2 or 3 colors for more of the vintage look. For my 4th of July cards I used 3 colors Real Red, Dapper Denim and Basic Black. For this snowman card I used Pacific Point and Dapper Denim, I also left an area blank for my sentiment.

For this project I used the following materials:

Paper:

• Water color paper 4" by 5 1/4" or very heavy card stock-110lbs to prevent peeling of the paper
• Dapper Denim card stock 5.5" by 8.5" scored at 4.25"
• One piece of scrap card stock -the length of the card

Ink

• Pacific Point
• Dapper Denim or 2 other coordinating colors

Maymaymadeit stamp sets:

• Snow Peeking 
• Snow Doubt

Other items:

• post it notes - a pack of them
• sponge dauber
• Art glitter glue

for the xtra project:

maymaymadeit stamp set

Ugly Sweater Weather

First I started off pulling out the stamps I wanted to use. For me that's easy I'm particle to snowmen and I also decided on what sentiment I wanted to use and where on the card I wanted to place it . For me it was the bottom left corner. I made this card before and didn't have enough room for the complete sentiment. Now I plan for it before I start my card.

Lay your piece of scrap card stock across the water color paper (use the smooth side) holding both papers firmly with your left hand ink up your sponge dauber using your lightest color - mine was pacific point - with circular motions and on your scrap paper make circular motions to even out the ink. DO THIS EVERY TIME YOU ADD MORE INK. Then with small circular motions go across both the scrap paper and the watercolor paper, the whole length of the card front adding ink as needed. Lift the scrap paper off and turn the watercolor paper lay the scrap paper down again and repeat the same procedure do this several times. When you get towards the bottom of the card take out your sentiment and lay it on your card to get an idea of how much room you need for it, adjust your scrap paper for it and remove your stamp and ink up the area. When you all all finished with this part, which it doesn't look like much, I went back and lightly added more ink around the inside edges and I also inked up the sides of the card.

When the ink is all dried, decide which area you want to stamp on first, then add the post it notes all around the edges of the area you're working on. Ink up your stamps with the darker ink my was the dapper denim and stamp on the area pressing hard on the areas that stamp on the post it notes. You want a clean crisp stamp clear to the edge. Remove the post it notes and check it out!! If it doesn't completely fill in the area add your post it notes back and add small stamps around your image, I used the snowflakes to fill in. Move on to the next area. Turn your stamps different directions. Remember to stamp your sentiment in one of the areas. 

Every card will turn out completely different, but they all have fantastic results!

Have Fun!!

Add to a card base and you have a one of a kind card!!

Ugly Sweater Weather Card

Stamp the sweater on a piece of card stock and use the same technique inking across the sweater using a piece of scrap paper.  Add different stamps to the areas and when finished stamping cut the image out and pop up on card stock with foam tape. Add a sentiment and you"re done!!

Here's some pics of my 4th of July retiform 

I hope you like this technique. If your have any questions please ask or if you have any suggestions for future blogs please add them to the comment section below.

Don't forget to post your retiform technique to maymaymadeitandsodidi facebook site.

Happy Crafting!!

My soul is fed with stamps and ink!