Vintage Leaves Birthday

Fall birthdays are so much fun!  Making cards with the rich colors of fall just makes my heart smile!  This card was made for a special friend of my family.  I needed a great card for a man with pop, but it still had to remain on the simple side; because men aren't fond of a lot of fluff.  LOL!  Normally, when we need a card for a man, leaves or trees are the design of choice.  This card is no exception.

I used my Simply Scored Scoring Tool and the retired Diagonal Plate to make the diagonal score marks on the card front.  Then simply attaching multicolored leaves and stamping a birthday sentiment finished off this card.  The leaves are made with Vintage Leaves stamp set and cut out with the matching Leaflets Dies.  The sentiment is from the Wetlands stamp set.

The base is Cajun Craze, with a layer of Always Artichoke, then a layer of Very Vanilla.  The sentiment was stamped with Cajun Craze ink and the leaves were stamped with Old Olive, Cajun Craze, Delightful Dijon, Always Artichoke, Pumpkin Pie, Cherry Cobbler, and Elegant Eggplant inks.  You can see I used a multicolored technique on a couple of the leaves to create interest by dabbing Cherry Cobbler ink around the edges.  The actual technique is called Rock & Roll, but I wasn't happy with the effect, so I resorted to just dabbing the darker ink around the edges.  The top layer of leaves are popped up using Dimensionals.

Thanks to Wendy Klein for the inspiration for creating this card.  You can see her original design here.

Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

*Items in bold are Stampin' Up! products.

Lighthearted Leaves

I love leaves and especially love all the colors of leaves in the fall.  This card adds a touch of shimmery gold that was made using the Happy Patterns Decorative Masks.  I simply used Versamark ink on a Sponge Dauber to ink up the cardstock through the mask, then sprinkled Gold Embossing Powder after removing the mask.  What a cool background it makes!  The rest of the card is so simple and basic.  Stamping the leaves from the Lighthearted Leaves stamp set and cutting them out with the matching Leaflets Framelits made a nice accent for the card.  The sentiment also comes from the Lighthearted Leaves stamp set and is definitely one of my favorites this year!  I used the Deco Labels Framelits to cut out the sentiment.  I softened the color of the Mossy Meadow Striped Cotton Ribbon by sponging a little Delightful Dijon ink on it before wrapping it around the Cajun Craze cardstock and adhering it to the back.  Taking another piece of the same ribbon, I pulled the threads from the green stripe apart to get 3 fine pieces to tie around the center leaf.  I think the final result is a lovely fall card to send for Thanksgiving.

What do you think?  Please leave me a comment.

Vintage Leaves Grateful

This is a quick card to make but the lovely leaves and DSP give it a lot of impact.  The DSP is part of the Into the Woods Designer Series Paper and the leaves are stamped using the Vintage Leaves stamp set and cut out with the matching Leaflets Framelits.  Both the Vintage Leaves stamp set and the framelits can be found in the 2015-2016 Annual Catalog.  I am a huge fan of anything with leaves!  I think they exude a wonderful quality that can be fun and lighthearted or soft and subtle.  Often some of the best masculine cards are made with leaves.  It just seems to work well for men--get away from the many varieties of flowers we so love to use.

For the sentiment I used A Little Something stamp set found in the 2015 Holiday Catalog cut out with the Lots of Labels Framelits from the Annual Catalog. This set has so many cute little images that work perfectly on cards like this where the paper really is the focal point.  They also make great tags for boxes and bags, including the Square Pillow Box Thinlits Die.  You can bundle the stamp set and the dies together for an even better bargain and get 15% off!

Take a few minutes and look through all the beautiful designer series paper Stampin' Up! has to offer.  Keep in mind that the catalog really doesn't do the patterns justice.  Pick a paper you love and create a card with it!