Colourful Seasons – Autumn a season of Mellow Fruitfulness.
Just my very favourite of the colourful seasons here in the UK. It’s a time for harvest. Baskets in hand we go off searching the hedgerows for dark rich fruits and search for nuts hoping to get them before the squirrels beat us to it. We spend a lot of our time gathering in the crops grown in our organic veggie patch, freezing, drying and bottling ready for use later in the year. It’s great to use the blackberries, hips and haws to making jams, cordials, coulis and jellies. There is nothing nicer for me than arranging flowers in vases. I adore Autumn when I have stunning coloured foliage from the shrubs in the garden. The leaves on the trees where we live turn a hundred shades of red, burnt orange and brown. The berries glisten and glow from amongst this stunning foliage. Marvellous!
Look at the warm rich colours in the Stampin’ Up! Regals selection and you have Autumn ready made.
For my Autumnal card I focus on just a couple of the wonderful regal colours. Of course the warm and wonderful Cajun Craze and then a small amount of Crushed Curry and Cherry Cobbler too.
Cut two card pieces the same size as shown above, one in Cajan Craze and one piece of Shimmer Card. Shimmer card has a lovely sparkly finish which has that dewy Autumn feel. It is robust in taking wet watercolour effects. It allows you to work quite wet so all the inks blur together without buckling the paper/card.
Decide where you want your coloured stripe and mask off the sides of the shimmer card using a couple of post it notes. This ensures you getting ink only in the area you wish. Use the sticky edge of the post it pressed well down to give a clean side to the area where you will create a striped watercolour coloured background effect. Using Cajan Craze, Crushed Curry and Cherry Cobble inks and a water brush swish across quickly so it remains wet between colours allowing them to run together. This mixing of the colours creates the background. Leave this to dry.
Once dry take off the post it notes and stamp some leaves and the thinking of you text. Begin with the text first then the main skeleton leaf the others being smaller are then easy to fill the spaces.
Wrap some Linen thread around the Cajun card. Tuck the two cards together stick down at angles leaving room for a couple of fun embellishments.
So what embellishments to use ? Well I have no hesitation. I chose these wonderful clear faceted gems which remind me so much of blackberries. My Dark Cherry Cobbler Blends pen is just perfect to colour them to better suit the card. Then a final brush over the leaves and Cajun card using a Wink of Stellar pen for that super Autumnal shimmery feel.
Use these items to create this card: