Autumn Leaves

Morning crafters, hope you have weathered out the storm and that you are all well? It was really blowing here, not a good day to have a ton of top soil delivered I can tell you lol! It poured down just after it was delivered! My poor cats did not want to venture out at all and thankfully as I cleared my greenhouse out on Saturday the rabbits were moved in on Sunday so they now have shelter for the winter!

 Patricia you must take a look at the CD, the images on there are beautiful its just choosing one that's the difficult bit. I shall look forward to viewing any future projects. I have loads and loads of odd bits in my waste box, I guess I will have to spend one day going through it all.

Now for todays card I decided to go back to my trees again today, I love trees they look so majestic and the bigger the better!

I started by folding a piece of Brown card from Lidls to form a 5x7 base card, on top of this I matted a piece of Create and Craft Gold Pearlescent card. Using the back of Crafters Companion Centura Pearl Silver card I randomly inked using Tim Holtz Distress Inks Vintage Photo, Fired Brick and Crushed Olive then inked round the edge with Vintage Photo. Using Sheena Douglass Little Bit Magical-The Quest I stamped the Maple Leaf with Versamark Stamp Pad over the background and heat embossed with Papermania Embossing Powder-Copper.

Now I wanted to use the Willow tree from Sheena Douglass Little Bit Oriental-Oriental Silhouette and being as it is in Black Silhouette I though it would look good on a dark background so I inked up a piece of scrap card with Versa Color-Royal Blue, stamped on the Willow Tree with Versamark Stamp Pad and heat embossed with Papermania Embossing Powder-Black Sparkle. On trying several dies to see which would look and fit best I decided on Spellbinders Nestabilities Label 20 to die cut the tree, this did not look right sitting straight onto the background so I embossed some C.C. Gold Pearlescent card with Labels 20 to give that extra ridge, cut it out and matted the tree image onto it and attached this to my card with Pinflare Silicone Glue. 

I felt it needed a sentiment of sorts and I wanted to keep the tree theme so I had the idea of printing an image of a leaf with my sentiment on it along with more leaves but my printer had other ideas, no matter how many time I clean the heads the images still print with lines across so I had to come up with another way of doing it, as the leaf stamps I have are too small I had a go at drawing my own. I made myself a template of a Maple Leaf and cut three out of Crafters Companion Centura Pearl Silver card, with two of the leaves I used the pearlescent side and the other one the plain back of the card, I gave each leaf a wash with Tim Holtz Distress Inks Fired Brick, Crushed Olive and Dried Marmalade three times to make the colour a bit intense, I then mixed some Fired Brick and Crushed Olive together and painted around the edge once more, using Dried Marmalade I painted on the stalks lightly, though I do not think they show up in the pictures. Once dry I stamped my sentiment from Creative Expressions Unmounted Stamps-Treasured Memories using Tim Holtz Distress Ink-Black Soot onto the matte leaf and then gave it a coat of Pinflare Glaze, this really brought out the Autumn colour on the leaf, so much so that I wished I had done all three the same!

There you have the finished card, it may be a bit bright for some of you but I liked the contrast of colours and I know you don't get Maple Leaves off a Willow tree but hey...! Anyhow, I hope you like it.

Thank you for looking, Jacquie xxx

Books of Knowledge

Morning Crafters, I have one of my personal favorite cards for you today, its one I made for a dear friend Jess who left our workplace last Friday, each time I look at this card I will remember her with great fondness, she is a lovely gal who has gone to Uni to become an English Teacher and I wish her all the best, she will no doubt become one of the best English Teachers of the future.

Items Used:

• Basic White 8" x 8" card
• Crafters Companion Centura Pearl Card- Pastels
• White Card
• Create and Craft Pearlescent card - Green
• Creative Expressions Foundation Card - Green
• Versa Color Ink - Royal Blue
• Colour Box Inks - Tuscany
• Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Peacock Feathers, Shaded Lilac, Dried Marigold, Crushed Olive,Vintage Photo, Black Soot and Fired Brick
• Pinflare Craft Glaze
• Pinflare Silicone Glue
• Couture Creations Embossing Folder - Damask
• Spellbinders Nestabilities Majestic Elements - Majestic Labels Twenty-Five
• Sheena Douglass Little Bit Magic- Knowledge, The Quest and Enchanted Doorway
• Staedtler Metallic Marker - Gold

I first matted & layered some  Crafters Companion Centura Pearl Card- Pastels slightly Gold colour onto my base card, using the same card I die cut Spellbinders Nestabilities Majestic Elements - Majestic Labels Twenty-Five using the two largest dies, I put this aside. With some White card I rubbed Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Peacock Feathers, Dried Marigold and Shaded Lilac over it and blended them together, I then run it through Couture Creations Embossing Folder - Damask twice to extend the pattern and matted this onto my card.

Using Sheena Douglass Little Bit Magic- Knowledge I stamped the books onto some White Card with Tim Holtz Distress Inks -  Black Soot and painted them in using inks from Colour Box Inks - Tuscany, Versa Color Ink - Royal Blue and Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Fired Brick and Vintage Photo, I watered down most of these colours to add the different tones on the books, I watered down Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Vintage Photo for the pages of the books rather than leaving them white. With the stamps from Sheena Douglass Little Bit Magic- Knowledge I stamped the words onto the binders of each book using Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Black Soot, on a couple of books I added  Staedtler Metallic Marker - Gold to the binders. I cut this out and then glazed it with Pinflare Craft Glaze, I let it dry then glazed it a second time. Once dry I mounted these onto the Majestic Labels Twenty-Five with Pinflare Silicone Glue to raise them up and set aside to dry overnight.

I matted the Majestic Lables Twenty-Five die, with the books attached, onto the center of my card. Using more White card, Create and Craft Pearlescent card - Green and Creative Expressions Foundation Card - Green I stamped the leaves from Sheena Douglass Little Bit Magic- The Quest and Enchanted Doorway using Tim Holtz Distress Inks -  Black Soot, I painted them with watered down Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Crushed Olive and Vintage Photo leaving some of the edges white to look a little realistic, once dry I cut these out and arranged them on the card around the focal point of the books. Needless to say how I wanted them placed meant I was covering up the largest outer die from the Majestic Labels Twenty-Five

so if I ever made something like this again I would leave that off the card. With the bigger leaves in the bottom right corner I bent them a little to give them some dimension and stuck them down with Pinflare Silicone Glue.

There you have the finished card. I was quite pleased with the finished result and Jess liked it too which I was pleased about, in fact at first she did not realize I had made the card!
Good Luck Jess.

Thanks for looking, Jacquie xxx