Fall Colors Hop Hosted By Taylormadecards

The next stop: Annalisa Gibson- https://youtu.be/yJqQ_PPV17s

You can find out more info about the hop and a full list of the participants in the hop at Monica Taylor's blog: https://taylormadecards4u.blogspot.com/2019/09/fall-colors.html

Hey Procraftinators! Today, I am participating in a Fall Colors hop. It's all about our favorite fall colors. To be honest, fall weather isn't my favorite. I hate the cold, but I do think the trees are pretty this time of year. I just wish it didn't have to start getting cold out! The cold weather wreaks havoc on my aching body. I'm sure there are some of you who can relate. Anyways, the design of my card was partly inspired by a video I saw on Jennifer McGuire's channel a few weeks ago where she did some beaded slider cards. I wanted do some "falling leaves" on my cards and the design was perfect. I did change up how she did it slightly though by putting my main image on the inside of my card.

First, I am started off with ink blending my card front panel. I used Distress Oxides in Gathered Twiggs, Aged Mahogany, Rusty Hinge, Carved Pumpkin & Squeezed Lemonade. For my ink blending, I go back and forth between the two colors next to each other to get a smooth blend. I know some people will go across their card panel and then go back the other way. However, I am super crazy about cross contamination of colors on my ink blending tools. I clean them REALLY well in between colors. So, I find going back and forth between 2 colors at a time, using 2 different blending brushes, to be more time efficient for the way I prefer to blend and clean my brushes. I end up cutting a large leaf from this panel, which came from Tonic Craft Kit #12, which is no longer available for purchase. Sorry, about that. I don't have much fall stamps or dies and I like to use what I have on hand. I am sure that you can find items in your stash to make something similar if you don't have these exact items. Use what you have!

Next, I ink blended Distress Oxides in Candied Apple, Mowed Lawn, Carved Pumpkin, & Squeezed Lemonade onto this strip of paper. These will be my "Falling Leaves" on my card. I used the tiny leaf dies from Tonic Craft Kit #12 to cut leaves from this ink blended strip. I blended the colors in a random pattern to get various, random multi colored leaves. It looks like a hot mess (pictured below), but the leaves turned out exactly how I intended them to. This is a similar technique that I use to make galaxy backgrounds, except I am using fall colors and not going over most of it with black soot, obviously.

I cut a large leaf out of the card base, which is Neenah Classic Crest 110lb. I cut the same large leaf out of my card front panel. The leaf is cut out of the same place in both the card base and the card panel. I also have the next size down leaf cut out of a piece of Bristol Smooth paper in which I stamped the Autumn scene from the Brutus Monroe Autumn Greetings Stamp set, which was part of the Stamptember 2019 collaboration. (All layers mentioned above, pictured below) So, unfortunately, this set is no longer available either, but I recently received it and was excited to use it and like I mentioned above, I don't have many Fall themed craft items. I colored the image with my Arteza Real Brush Pens. I didn't want my falling leaves to totally cover my hard work of coloring the image, so I had decided that I wanted the image to be on the inside of the card but show through the the front. Which is why I cut the window in the front of the card. So, I used that window as a guide to glue the ink blending leaf and colored image to the inside of my card.

In order to get the paper leaves onto the fishing line, I sandwiched a small bead or two in between the leaf and then threaded on the fishing line. I had ran the ink blended paper through my Xyron before die cutting, so they all had double sided adhesive on them already, which helped. After sandwiching the bead and making sure it was secure, I did take my anti static powder tool and tap it on the exposed edges to make sure the adhesive didn't stick to the fishing line and cause it not to slide smoothly. Again, Jennifer McGuire has a great video on how to do this beaded slider technique. After attaching the stings with Score tape to my card front, I covered the back with foam tape. Make sure you put the foam tape underneath the beaded strings as stoppers for your beads so they don't go behind the card. I almost forgot on a couple strings and had to go back before I adhered the card together.

Before I adhered the card front to the card base, I decided to place a piece of acetate between the 2 layers. It may not have been necessary, but I did this because the falling leaves could spin freely without it and I didn't want them to turn in such a way that they might get smashed when someone was shutting the card. This way, they couldn't spin and only stay parallel with the acetate and you can still see through to the colored image inside. By the way, I save my Cricut mat covers for a cheap acetate alternative for things like this. Once I applied the acetate, I applied liquid glue to the back of the acetate and to the remaining exposed foam tape. I did this so I would be able to move the card panel around a bit in order to line the leaf cut out in the card panel up with the leaf cut out with the card base.

After getting the card panel attached to the card base, I tested the bead shaker and there were a few places sticking, so I applied my powder tool until everything was sliding fairly smoothly. After that, I went to my Cricut and got to working on some sentiments. Life has been a bit crazy the last few weeks and this hop and my 8th wedding anniversary snuck up on me. So, this card ended up doing double duty! I was married in the fall, so it works right? So, my husband got a fall themed wedding anniversary card.

It's not something I would normally make him, but he got something a little different this year. Haha! In all fairness, I made him an anniversary card to give to me last week....hopefully that video will be going up soon! I hope you enjoyed this video and please do go check out the other videos in the hop.

Supplies Used

Distress Oxides for Card Panel - Gathered Twiggs. Aged Mahogany, Rusty Hinge, Carved Pumpkin, & Squeezed Lemonade

Distress Oxides for Falling Leaves - Candied Apple, Mowed Lawn, Carved Pumpkin, & Squeezed Lemonade

Arteza Real Brush Pens

Tonic Craft Kit #12 Dies

Cricut for sentiments

Brutus Monroe Autumn Greetings Stamp set part of the Stamptember 2019

Seed beads

Fishing line

Scor Tape

Distress Collage Medium in Matte

Gina K Amalgam Ink