It pains me to say this, but it’s officially time to say goodbye to summer because tomorrow is the first day of fall. If your favorite season is summer, perhaps you’re shedding a tear or two as well. As much as I wish we could hang on to these sunny warm days forever, I’ll admit that fall crafting has been bringing me a lot of joy lately – the rich color palettes, the leaves, and don’t even get me started on wreaths – you can bet I’ve been making a lot of cards with wreaths lately!
Speaking of fall, last week the Leaves Die Set, Thank You die set, and Fallish Stamp and Die sets, landed in the Ellen Hutson shop as part of the September release. As I mentioned in my review here, these products are among my top picks because of their versatility and modern fonts. I didn’t want to stop creating after completing my projects for Reveal Week, so I carried on and created a clean and simple handmade card set for fall using some simple masking and heat embossing.
I began with 3 white A2 card panels, Catherine Pooler Ginger ink, Concord & 9th Ballet Slipper ink. I used Post-It tape to mask off a simple vertical strip on one panel, a diagonal line on the second panel, and then for the 3rd, made a DIY stencil with a piece of acetate and the large maple leaf from the Leaves Die Set. By placing this over the 3rd panel and holding it in place on my glass mat with some magnets, I was able to ink blend in the open area just like a regular stencil.
When the ink blending was done on all 3 and fully dry, I used a bunch of the small images from the Fallish Stamp Set to create what looked like a randomly stamped print. After that ink blending work was done, I left the Post-It tape/DIY stencil in place so I could emboss in the same exposed areas. Luckily there are heaps of images in the Fallish stamp set, so you can use a MISTI to do the stamping in clear embossing ink, rather than having to use acrylic blocks. (That said, if you prefer blocks, you can absolutely do it that way! I prefer my MISTI in this case because I was able to stamp all of the images at once.) I used white embossing powder so that the images would stand out on their colorful backgrounds, but if you prefer an emboss-resist technique with clear embossing, that would absolutely work too.
After heat setting the embossing powder, I peeled back the Post-It tape to reveal the lovely clean lines (always such a magical moment!) and trimmed down the panels to 3.5″ wide x 4.75″ tall. From here, it was just a matter of figuring out a sentiment for each card, and a few other small elements.
For the panel with the diagonal ink blending, I die cut the maple leaf from the Leaves Die Set several times in white carstock, then stacked them on top of each other for dimension. Then, I layered that over my ink blended panel, along with a foiled Celebrate sentiment from the Way With Words hot foil plate.
For the panel with the vertical stripe of ink blending up the side, I used the Thank You die set and Concord & 9th cardstock in Ballet Slipper, Grapefruit and Sorbet to create a multicolored sentiment that coordinated with the ink blending. I love a good 2-piece die and I think this is going to be one of the most-used Essentials by Ellen items in my stash for a long time to come!
Finally for the 3rd, card, I heat embossed a ‘hello’ (also from the Fallish stamp set) in white and cut it out with the coordinating die. I didn’t want to take away from the simplicity of the stenciled leaf image in the background, so I finished this one off with a couple of sparkling clear sequins. For all 3 cards, I mounted the panels on A2 card bases with foam tape.
And there you have it! A very clean and simple handmade card set for fall, perfect for sending notes of your own, or gifting to a friend. I love the beautiful clean lines that very simple masking creates – a technique that never gets old and can be combined with any stamp set in your stash for some fun single-layer print making.
Thanks so much for stopping by to check out these projects. I’ll see you back here soon!
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