a spooky shoebox

Hello!  :0)

I hope you had a great weekend!  I sure did.  On Saturday I attended another fun day of stamping with some of my NY and PA friends.  Fun, fun!  I have a few projects from this gathering that I will share with you this week.  And the sneak peeks for the new ATS sets for November start this week too, so be sure to check the ATS blog each day! 

This card was my shoebox project on Saturday that I prepared for everyone at my table to make.  I used my Ollie and Griselda set, along with the Retiform Grid technique that I haven’t done in a long time.  It was fun to try it out again.  I don’t remember where I first learned this technique, but I learned to make it two different ways…one by drawing in the lines with a marker and the other by sponging without drawing the lines.  I forgot to take some pictures as I was making it, so hopefully I’ll explain it well enough to understand.

First I started with a square of white cardstock.  Then I made a pattern for my grids by cutting a second square into 3 random pieces.  You do not need to make a pattern but I needed to be able to make several cards exactly alike so a pattern was very helpful.  Then I traced the pattern pieces with a Sharpie marker to get the black lines. 

Next I masked off each section, one at a time and stamped the images with black ink.  Then I masked them each again, sponging them with 3 different colors of ink.  It really doesn’t matter if you stamp first or sponge first by doing it this way but if you stamp first, then you have a little more control over where your lighter, highlighted areas are.

The second way I learned to do this technique is to not draw in any lines.  In this way, you must do your sponging first.  Mask off a section and sponge it.  Then move your mask and sponge another section.  Your sections may overlap if you want.  Continue until you fill the cardstock.  Then come back and mask the sections again, this time stamping various coordinating images in each one.  By doing it this way, it is sometimes best to choose only 2 colors of ink that blend well together to avoid the sections looking “muddied” where they overlap. 

I hope I explained it well enough and you give it a try!  It is really a fun technique which is quick and easy when you don’t have time to do a lot of coloring.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

stamps- Ollie and Griselda by Cookie Crumbs; paper- Elegant Eggplant, Not Quite Navy, Olive, Pumpkin, Black, White; ink- Memento Black, SU! Not Quite Navy, Pumpkin, Olive; accessories- Cuttlebug Halloween die and Spiderweb embossing folder, Sharpie marker, Martha Stewart Spiderweb Edge punch, brad, sponges.