To honor the changing of the seasons I decided to go full-on fall here and pulled out these deliciously warm and rich colors of oxides ink pads which consist of  Walnut stain, carved pumpkin, fried brick, and mustard seed, along with these fabulous stamp and die set. For both cards, I used the Gina K Skeleton Leaves stamp set along with the Concord and 9^th ThankfulTurn about stamp set and Thankful Leaves die set.

I created two versions of the same card with just a little difference. For the first card, I created a die-cut mask using the Thankful leaves die from Concord and 9^th, I did this out of heavy cardstock and later went back and did it out of yupo.   I placed the mask in the bottom right-hand corner adhered it temporarily with some low tape and then went in with the different leaves of the Gina K skeleton leaves set and my distress oxides, alternating direction, color and even going back in and layering more leaves on top. Stamping with an acrylic block on to the textured side of the distress watercolor paper you do not always get 100% of the image stamped but for this, it worked out and added to the look.

Once all the stamping was complete, I went in with my distress sprayer filled with water and misted the whole panel, this allowed the colors to move and spread out a tad without losing all the detail of those incredible leaves. In retrospect adding the mask was a wasted step as I later cover up the whole dang thing, lol but it looked cool while I was doing it.

For the second card panel, I did in fact, use the mask and negative die-cut to its fullest potential. Here above you can see I used the negative die to create a stencil I pulled out some of my oxide sprays in candied apple, squeeze lemonade and warm honey stain. I had fun getting really inky here. I have to be honest I played around with a few other versions as I can’t just stop at one so by the time I was done my hands were ORANGE.  Anywhoo    I really liked how this turned out. 

Once it was dry I decided to put the mask on top of the stenciled leaf and repeat the stamping as per the first panel.  I really didn't know how this would look and if I would, in fact, use it but I had to try. Surprisingly it turned out well even after I spritzed with water.  

Once the really messy part was done it was time to figure out how to turn these into cards.  I had so so many ideas running through my head, so be prepared, I have another card to come using some of the same products and style, lol

.  I started out by making more pattern paper using a stencil from my stash that looked like a knit sweater, I felt this just really played well with the theme I was going for.  I stenciled this on to Neenah solar white cardstock using mustard seed distress oxide ink and my Picket fence blending brushes. Oh, I still love these brushes, they make blending so easy. I repeated this process twice because I needed to make big panels. to fit the 5½ x 4¼ inked leafy panels.

 I decided to die cut more of the Thankful leaves using the vine portion of the die as well, I cut several of these, some in metallic cardstock and some from gold glitter cardstock which you will see in pictures below. 

I created my own card bases using Kraft cardstock, I just folded the 8½ x 11 in half and then trimmed down to 7¼ x 5½, I trimmed the stenciled knit cardstock down to 6½ x 4¾, I decided both the leave background and stenciled background needed a matt to help it pop just a little bit more, so I cut some chocolate brown card down to (large panel) 6 5/8 x 5 and (smaller panel) to 4 3/8 x5 5/8.  Once I was done trimming everything down I started to play around with layout and sentiment ideas, I think this part took the longest, but in the end I decided to stamp the So very Thankful sentiment from the Concord and 9^th thankful leaves turn about set, I stamped using some versa mard and my walnut stain oxide ink and set this will clear embossing powder, it turned out well I was happy and just another way to use your oxide ink. 

I layered both stencil and stamped panels on to their coordinating made and then added to the card base using fun foam, I forgot about the vellum and had to go back and gently remove the panel to wrap the vellum around and tuck it behind the stamped panel. I was very worried this wasn't going to work and I would end up ruining everything but the crafty gods were on my side and it worked nicely. 

Once I had the cards together I added the leaf die cuts on top, with the top you can see what I mean where I end up covering the whole of the white space, I decided last second to go in and inlay all the gold pieces. Me and my bright ideas sometimes lol making more work for myself. haha

Fo the second card you can see I have two leaves, I ended up die cutting some of the extra panels I created and layered underneath the red metallic paper, and for the orange stenciled leaf I decided to add a gold version just to add a little sparkle.  I kept the rest very clean and simple, I decided to offset the distressed image a little so that a good portion of the knit sweater stenciling would show through. 

I hope you found some inspiration from my projects and please leave a comment to be entered into the giveaway.

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Have a Great Weekend!

Nancy