Fab 'n' Funky ~ Retro Chic

Hey there lovelies. It's my turn to host the challenge at Fab 'n' Funky this week and I've chosen a theme I hope you all will love. Our wonderful sponsor this challenge is The Paper Shelter and looking through their fabulous images I was inspired by how many of them depict a particular era, there are the big bustles and tiny wastes of the late 1800's, the sweet tea dresses of the 1950's, the swinging 60's hippies, or perhaps a 1920's flapper?! There's just such a huge range of lovely vintage images out there in our crafty world, so this week, I'd love to see you pull out your coolest 'Retro Chic' images and have a play along with us. I was laid low by a migraine on the day I was planning to prepare my card, so I'm only just putting up my post today.

One of my darling pals turned 40 recently and I've wanted to make her this card for weeks, but been too busy to pull it together. So I was delighted to have this challenge as a reason to make it happen. She was in fact the inspiration for my theme choice. She loves the 1950's era and the beautiful tea dresses of that era. She's also rather partial to animal prints and totally knows how to rock that look! She looks amazing in hot pink too, so a little plan came together when I recently bought some paper from Snap Click (which if you don't know about, you should totally stop in for a visit, they have a 'One Buck Wednesday' every week, with fabulous digital paper sets down to US$1!!). The set I used is called Beautiful Chic by designer Adrienne Looman and the pink brick and animal print with roses papers are from this set. They just screamed to me to be used for this card. Utterly perfect for my lovely pal Sarah. 

Having been poorly, I thought I might use one of the lovely precoloured images from The Paper Shelter to save me some colouring time, but my printer is still being naughty and it printed pink bands on the bottom half of the image! I tried colouring over them to tone them down and blend them in, but they just didn't obscure at all well, so I went off to my local printer, had the images printed in a couple of different sizes and brought them home to colour up. I used the little image as my 'practice' image and then coloured up the larger image once I was happy that I could pull off turning the polka dots on the dress into animal spots. I'm so happy with how this turned out.

I used a Copic friendly Memento Dual Marker to create the Leopard spots on her dress, then added two colours around them to create more convincing Leopard spots. I've used a mix of my Copics and Promarkers for this creation. I don't have any 'hot pinks' in my Copics as yet, but I love using them for hair and skin, so the pic above shows the Copic colours I used for her red hair and fair skin.

I tested out the two sizes of image on the card base and settled on the larger size as the little image looked swamped. That little image came up so well in the test colouring, so I'll create a smaller card later on and use it on that. 

I went through several different ideas when creating the card base. I cut the work 'hello' from pink cardstock, but decided that a metallic finish might be better. The silver and gold didn't quite work, but I liked the rose gold finish. It just seemed to work best. It's hard to capture the pretty shade of rose gold, as when the light hits it in photos, it can change the look dramatically. Below you get a glimpse of the pretty rose gold shade.

I used Wink of Stella on her bow, hair clip and make up puff. I also added some white Flower Soft to depict the little powder clouds which were cut away in the fussy cutting. The circle mat I used, is actually from a Double Scallop Whimsy die, but the scallops were a bit much for the design, so I just trimmed those off leaving the more solid central circle. 

Check out her cute feet. Those shoes are so gorgeous! I had to paint her toenails of course! One of the cute little details you are rewarded with if you stop and take a closer look. I wonder if my pal will notice?!

That's all for today, I am going to go hang out with hubby, so I'll wrap it up there and catch you all again soon for another crafty adventure. Be sure to stop into the Fab 'n' Funky Challenge Blog and check out what my awesomely talented teamies got up to this week. They all rose to this challenge fantastically and have created some stunning cards. Click through on their links for a closer look at their creations on their own blogs. Thanks heaps for stopping in to see me today and sorry about the über long post! I had planned to do a quick one, but I just can't help myself, there were so many pretties to share! LOL. Have an awesome weekend. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Cardz 4 Galz: #71 ~ All Dressed Up

Not Just Cards: May ~ Anything Goes

Crafty Creations: #366 ~ Anything Goes

Lemon Shortbread: #67 ~ Anything Goes

Colour Crazy Challenge: #20 ~ Anything Goes

Creative Inspirations: May ~ CAS or Fussy & Fancy

Addicted To Stamps & More: #292 ~ Make Your Mark

SugarPea: #43 ~ Mix It Up Challenge (inspired by the pink rose)

The Paper Girls: #151 ~ Friendship (made for one of my bestie's 40th birthday)

As You Like It: Pink or Blue? I'm definitely a pink girl. I love pink and I love crafting with it.

Update: I was the Spotlight Winner at Cardz 4 Galz, so delighted and humbled. Thanks you so much!!