Loving Autumn's Splendor

We live literally around the corner from the Alum Creek Resevoir in Delaware Ohio.  Its a beautiful area of central Ohio. Living here allows us to live slightly in the city by being on the fringe of Columbus, the capital of Ohio and the home of the Ohio State Buckeyes (GO BUCKS!) and also in the country where you can see all the colors against the open sky. By being able to see all these wonderful colors you really have a new appreciation for God's color pallette. He really was the ultimate Artist. His vision for our world was incredible and continues to amaze me.

When I saw the leaves in the Stampin' Up! Autumn Splendor stamp set I fell in love with each of the leaves. The detail is awesome. Each stamp has gentle curves and great vein detail which tell me they'll stamp beautiful images.  I imagined them each in warm mixtures of all the beautiful autumn shades that I love so much. I wanted to make a thank you card for friends and thought this would be perfect.

In thinking of bringing all those colors to life. I wanted to do something "different" than my tradtional coloring with Copics and my water coloring skills are still so new I didnt know if I could swing it. A light bulb came on and I remembered that a few weeks ago at my first techniques class with my upline Connie Babbert, she taught us to stamp with bleach on dark card stock. The bleach will draw the color from the stock. After it dries you can colorize with chalks as we did.

I tried to think of how else I might accomplish something as interesting but maybe with a different technique. A light bulb came on and I remembered that when I started making cards last year, I bought a set of colored embossing pens from Marvy. Had to have them but then they got stowed away, never to be used until these stamps came along.  Luckily they hadn't dried out and were good to go.

Like most things I do, I was flying by the seat of my pants. Instead of stamping in the traditional manner, I colored the stamp with yellow, orange, red and green. When done, I "huffed" on the stamp to make sure that the embossing ink was still moist(a little trick I learned from reading Tiffany Bauer's blog).  After stampin, I doused it with clear embossing powder, heated it up  and Voila .... I couldn't have loved it any more.. Each of the colors came through just enough. When I looked it, it was kinda like I'd picked up a leaf from the ground and placed it on the page. Well with a few exceptions - unlike picking up leaves, I didnt have to worry about dew, slugs or bugs! Another bright spot! : )   I tried next on a piece of white card stock and then a piece of black card stock.  I didn't like the look as well on the black and the white was too austere. The color of the off-white water color paper was warm enough that it blended well with the colors in the leaves and the texture of the paper made it a bit more interesting.

I always have issues choosing background papers or stock for mounting. Do I use plain or printed? Flat or textured?  and the list continues...  I sometimes take hours trying to figure it out. I am ADD and very indecisive. In my desire to do "my" best, I sometimes end up not completing things because I can't decide. Personality flaw I know but I'm working on it.  I do find that all of the matching elements from Stampin' Up! make the process easier for me and I LOVE that! If you're also ADD you will love that Stampin' Up! makes it easier for you to complete a project by giving you a plentitude of matching papers, embellishments and inks.

I hope in looking at these close-ups you're able to see the colors and the textures in the embossing.

I finished the front with  a Stampin' Up! sentiment from "Warm Words" which unfortunately,  is now retired. 

I am big into ribbon, bows and flowers but I'm try to step outside my comfort zone and embellish with other things I have in my craft stashes. I had some raffia left over from a home decorating project and it was just enough to add to this card. Over all I'm happy with the end result.

Hope you all like it too.

Items used in this project: 

Stamps: Stampin' Up! Autumn Splendor

Cardstock : Stampin' Up! Cherry Cobbler and More Mustard 

Mat Stack: K & Co.

Embossing Pens: Marvy

Embossing Powder: Ranger

Punch: Stampin' Up! Scalloped Oval