When Autumn Leaves.......A Set of Cards

Can you feel the change in the air?  Fall is on the way, and I am delighted!  I've been itching to start some cards for the season,  so I decided to use this pretty heart-shaped leaf die and pair it with a favorite sentiment.  And HERE's my favorite rendition of that music!

supplies: cream cardstock and vellum, Concord & 9th Layering Leaves die, distress inks and blending tools, Impression Obsession Autumn Leaves sentiment, VersaMark ink and Ranger copper embossing powder, sequins

I used the leaf die to cut out a pattern of swirling leaves from my card stock, then re-inserted the leaves back into place.  My background is simply a sponging of fall distress inks, spritzed with water.  And I used the sequins mainly to cover the places where I applied glue to the vellum, and then outwards from there.

I made that first card yesterday and this morning, decided I wanted to play with the same elements again, moving that sentiment down to the right corner.  So I started off by doing just that - stamping the sentiment and embossing it in the same copper I used yesterday.  I did it 3 times, but the powder just blew away when I heated it.  So then I changed my powder to another copper one, and you can see the results.  It isn't a fine-detail powder, and it has more glitter in it, and although it is embossed better to begin with, the chunky glitter in it has been knocked off as I worked on the rest of my design......sometimes you just can't win!  Maybe I need another VersaMark pad?  I decided to share it anyway.

supplies: cream and Simon's Orange Peel card stock, negative die-cut from Concord & 9th Layering Leaves die, fall distress inks, Concord & 9th Give Thanks clear stamps,  Impression Obsession Autumn Leaves sentiment, Zing Copper glitter finish embossing powder, Simon Stitched Rectangle die, copper sequins

I like the little starry seed stamp from the set that I added to the open spaces this time.  The leaves were "stenciled" on using the negative heart leaf die-cut, and then I over-stamped the veins.  If you compare my results with the next card, where I used a stamp to make the hearts, stenciling allows you to shade with different colors, whereas stamping with multiple distress inks just looks kind of blotchy.....

Looking through my fall stash of stamps, I rediscovered this text background, and started with that one for my final card.  It trims nicely using Simon's largest Stitched Rectangle die, and then I used the heart leaf and matching veins stamps to randomly scatter the leaves over it, again using the same distress inks.  This time I added gold sequins.

supplies: cream and yellow card stock, Stampendous Autumn Words woodblock stamp, Concord & 9th Give Thanks clear stamps, same distress inks, Simon's Stitched Rectangle, gold sequins

Thanks for reading all the way down to this point, and for bearing with my experiments today!  I think I've gotten fall out of my system - for a week or so!