Just as the leaves seem to be falling fast outside here in Vancouver, there have been a lot of leaves coming out of my die cutting machine! I’ve been deep into card making over the weekends, and lately my enthusiasm has been coming from a super cute little set of dies recently added to my stash.
Earlier this month, The Stamp Market released a bunch of fun new items, including the Mini Autumn Leaves die set. It was a quick add-to-cart for me, as was the coordinating stamp set…. among other things! 🙈 With both Canadian and American Thanksgiving coming up, I was really excited to dive straight in to making some fall-themed cards. Today I’ve got two to show you, and in my next post I’ll share another two with the same dies.
Design 1: White on White
For this card, I used a bunch of the mini leaves to create a textured white background. You could certainly do this with any cardstock weight, but I cut mine from 110lb cardstock so that the texture would be more obvious.
After I’d played around with the leaf arrangement and adhered them to my white card panel, I used the Mini Skinny Upper Alphabet Dies and Colour Crush Cardstock in various colours to create the words “thankful” and “grateful”. I wanted to give these letters some dimension too, so to do this, I cut 2 of each letter, then stacked them on top of each other on a strip of white cardstock cut to the same width as my background panel.
I embossed the words ‘for all that you do’ (a stamp from another set in my stash), then added these pieces underneath the larger words with foam tape. I chose vibrant colours (Fuschia and Greenery from The Stamp Market’s Colour Crush collection) to ensure there would be enough contrast with the white embossing powder. My original intent was not to create two cards with this design, but I really started to love it while making the first. There were some leftover white leaves and I didn’t want any going to waste, so the second one was born!
Design 2: Multicolour Ink Blended Leaves
If you find ink blending to be relaxing like I do (well, most of the time), bust out those blending brushes because this one’s for you!
I have to admit, I’m not the best at ink blending and it makes sense because I don’t do it that often! However, this card design was a really forgiving one to practice with. I started by blending various shades of Color Crush inks on 110lb smooth white cardstock. Once the sheet was completely covered, I die cut a whole bunch of leaves, strategically placing them in spots where the ink blending was nice and smooth. (Yes, there were some patchy spots, which I avoided using!) Once I had enough leaves, I cut the vein portions from Color Crush Cardstock backed with double-sided adhesive for quick and easy assembly.
I wanted to create a background that was subtle, but still provided some visual interest. I decided to use this Criss Cross Background Stamp with my Blush ink, and it was just enough to create the soft look I was hoping for. For my sentiment, I grabbed one of my favourites from the Kindness Matters stamp set, heat embossed it with Metallic Gold Rich embossing powder, and die cut it with an Oblong Hexagon nested die. And of course, because I just looooove adding dimension, I backed the sentiment with craft foam before placing it over my leaf arrangements. After adding a few clear enamel droplets as the finishing touch, she was all done!
I hope these got your creative juices flowing for fall card making, and stay tuned for 2 more leafy cards coming up in my next post!