Hello and welcome. I wanted to share a card i made for a colleague at work, to say thank you for the last few months whilst I’ve been back out of retirement. I’m now having a second try at being retired – we’ll see how long it lasts this time, as the first attempt only lasted 3 months thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic!

She owns a vintage VW campervan, so this stamp from Crafty Individuals was perfect. I started with a piece of card from my stash that I’d previously used to mop up ink from my blending mat. This one has a mixture of green & blue inks, so was perfect for a landscape.

I knew I wanted to create a scene on the card, so started by stamping the campervan in the lower left part of the card

I coloured that campervan with Spectrum Noir pencils, but quickly realised that it’s impossible to make the upper part, which is traditionally white, any paler. I tried to even the colour out to blend with the background, but still wasn’t happy with it. So I stamped the image again onto a piece of scrap card, and then cut it out so I could mount it over the original image.

Before gluing it on, though, I finished the rest of the scene, using the original image to line everything up. I used the Claritystamp ‘Birdhouse garden’ set for the fence, masking off the birdhouse itself from the large stamp.

That left a tall stump, so I added a bird, and the squirrel from the set on the other side of the van. I got the van to sit on the ground using torn copy paper and ink on a make up sponge, so it didn’t seem to be floating in mid air!

With sentiment added and the van glued into place, I just edged the topper with a black Sharpie pen and mounted it onto a 6×6 square card.

I really love this little scene. I know my friend is looking forward to getting a break away in her campervan now that the lockdown in England is being eased, and I hope you manage to get some time for rest and relaxation this summer.