Handmade cards with retro campers are all the rage right now – who knew?

Rubbernecker Stamps has rebranded and is now Brass & Bliss Craft Co. The items in this blog post can be found on our new website at www.BrassandBliss.com. The shopping links in this blog have been updated to take you to the correct location for purchasing.

We love all things old that are new again and have made several dies that celebrate this trend. Lately we’ve been seeing ideas for handmade cards with retro campers and we couldn’t be more excited! Our Retro Camper Die set HAS been very popular and we are thrilled that it has been such a hit! It was even featured on one of our most popular Christmas cards.

Apparently Sammi feels this way, too! She says “I have been in love with retro campers as far as I can remember, so I just had to make a card with Rubbernecker’s Retro Camper dies! I love the woods and camping with cute critters seems fun.”

Well this card sure is fun! Let’s see how she did it!

Sammi started by cutting her background from a piece of patterned paper from our Off the Grid 6 X 6 Paper Pad to fit her white card base. She used our Deckle Frame die to cut a piece of brown card stock and then used shades of brown ink from Color Fuse Set #3 to add her dimension and shading. Then using a little of the different grays from Color Fuse Set #12, she added some aging to create a rustic look on her frame. She adhered her background to her card base with her tape runner and then adhered her frame with some dimensional adhesive for a hint of a shadow box effect.

Then she cut out different shades of card stock with our Retro Camper die, some green card stock with our Grass #2 dies and some more green with the trees from our Evergreen Trees die set.

Sammi used more shades of Color Fuse ink from her collection (see specific sets in her handy table below) to add dimension and shading to all the parts and pieces. You can see how using tone on tone with gray gives that gorgeous patina to her elements. Here’s her camper body.

Here is a shot of her coloring on the little details – this is such a quick and small step but you can see the huge impact this level of detail has on the overall look.

And last, on her trees. Just look at how they come to life with just a little ink!

When she had everything colored and shaded, Sammi adhered everything together with liquid glue and added them to her card using some more dimensional adhesive. PRO TIP: Using liquid glue to add little details gives you that little margin of time to get them placed precisely.

To add her little friends to the scene, Sammi stamped her racoon and beaver from our Woodland Animals #1 set, cut them out with our coordinating die and then colored them in with some Copics.

She popped them into her scene, adding them to the bottom corners of her card, layering them over the trees for some more dimensional effect.

While this is an excellent all purpose card, Sammi wanted to use this as a birthday card. She used the birthday sentiment from our Poetic Peonies stamp set, stamping it onto a scrap of green card stock. She aged the edges as she did all the other elements for continuity and then added it to her card with some thin foam tape. A few brown pearls from her stash and Sammi proclaimed this fabulous fun project done!

We just love it! If you love it, too, here’s what you will want to pull from your stash or add to your cart:

• Color Fuse Set #11
• 5519-02D Retro Camper Die
• 3324 Woodland Animals #1 – 4×8 Stamp Set
• 3324D Woodland Animals #1 Coordinating Dies
• 5217-01D Evergreen Tree Die
• 5176-01D Deckle Frame Die
• 5210-02D Grass #2 Die
• 2008 Off the Grid- 6×6 Paper Pad
• 3405 Poetic Peonies – 6×8 Stamp Set
• Color Fuse Set #10
• Color Fuse Set #9
• Color Fuse Set #4
• Color Fuse Set #12
• Color Fuse Set #3

We are excited that handmade cards with retro campers are popular and that our very own die set is featured on so many of them! We love it when we think up something that resonates with people and the whole mid-century modern look really is enjoying a comeback. We hope this card and the others we’ve shared inspire you to add a little retro love to your own projects!