Golden Shimmering Oak Leaves

Hello Everyone,

Tomorrow is the first day of Fall and what better way to bring in this new season than with shimmering fallen leaves by Neat & Tangled. These oak leaves from the Oak Leaf stamp and die set are sooo pretty! And you can use them in so many ways.

For this card, I chose to only use the die set but there is a coordinating stamp that would be beautiful too! The die set includes a solid leaf and a die that has all the veining of the leaf. I cut two leaves with the veining out of white cardstock and one solid leaf from black Licorice Twist cardstock and another solid leaf from Bristol paper.

After the Bristol paper leaf was cut, I used the veined die and dry embossed the leaf by using my rubber embossing mat, removing a shim from the die cutter machine and running it through so the veining would imprint but not cut all the way through.

Next, I colored the Bristol paper leaf with some distress inks to give a true Autumn leaf look. I did this by smooching a small patch each of Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey, Fired Brick, and Peeled Paint onto a scrap piece of acrylic sheet, spritzed it with water and swiped the leaf through the different patches until I had the colors the way I wanted them, then set aside to dry.

Now on to the veined leaves. I liberally stamped the leaves with Versamark ink and sprinkled them with a combination of embossing powders. I used WOW! Midas Touch, Metallic Gold Sparkle and Mint Mojito, then heat embossed them.

I wasn’t finished with my embossing powders quite yet! I pressed some Versamark ink onto the edges of the leaf and embossed it with the same combination of embossing powders.

My leaf grouping was nearly complete. I just needed one more element. So, using one of the Bold Greenery dies by My Favorite Things, I cut a multi-petaled leaf, stamped it with Versamark ink and liberally sprinkled Mint Mojito, Gold Sparkle and Hero Arts Copper embossing powders and heat set it.

There were only a few things left to do before it all came together. I needed a sentiment! So, I cut the “kind” word from the Concord & 9th Kind Card Add-On die from Circus Peanuts cardstock and created ombre coloring by coloring the top of the word with Y38 Copic Marker, the middle with YR16 and the bottom with R08. Then, lightly randomly pressed Versamark ink, sprinkled Gold Sparkle embossing powder and heat set. The “You’re Always So” from the Concord & 9th Kindhearted stamp set was stamped onto black cardstock with Versamark ink and heat embossed with Metallic Gold Sparkle.

Let’s put this thing together! Starting with a black card base, a panel of Sugar Wafer cardstock (one of my favorites) was added to the top. I cut a skinny frame from white cardstock using the Lawn Fawn Outside In Frames, adhered foam tape to the back and pressed it in place. Next, the leaves were arranged, layered and adhered with foam tape.

“Kind” was layered on top with slivers of foam tape on the back and the “You’re always so” was added. Finally, a gold cord was tied at the top, holding the stems of the leaves together.