Grateful For You – a beautiful maple leaf

Hi Everyone,

I always look forward to this time of the year where there is a burst of Fall leaves. Concord & 9th has the perfect one with their gorgeous die set: Thankful Leaves. It creates a fabulous leaf and the gracious Grateful sentiment is from the same release. I know I will be using these dies over and over again.

Take a look at this version.

Note: For those of you that received the blog post in your email today, I made a big boo-boo! I forgot to mention the “Grateful for you” sentiment is from the Concord & 9th Grateful die set. This blog article has been changed to reflect the correct information.

This card began with cutting out all the pieces in this set from Bristol cardstock. I was careful to lessen the pressure while cutting the large leaf so that the pieces all stay intact. In fact, in some areas, they don’t even cut all the way through. To ensure they all stayed together while coloring, I cut the outline of another leaf and mounted it on the back to hold everything in place.

The large leaf was then colored with an array of distress oxide inks: Aged Mahogany, Bundled Sage, Mustard Seed, Ripe Persimmon, Candied Apple, Forest Moss and Gathered Twigs. I pounced bits of color using a blending tool over the whole leaf, let it dry and then added more color as needed. I continued layering color until I got the look I wanted.

To finish the large leaf, I added Aged Mahogany all around the edges. The small maple leaf was colored with Ripe Persimmon and Aged Mahogany and the smaller leaf colored with Bundled Sage and Forest Moss, then Versamark ink was sponged on the edges and embossing powder was applied and heat set.

A second large leaf was cut, then all the pieces punched out, leaving only the outline of the leaf and it’s veining. I pressed on a heavy layer of Versamark ink over the whole surface and started adding different colored embossing powders (see in supply list below), some glitter, some not, until it has a good layer of embossing powder. It is then heat set.

I used the same technique with the sentiment, except I only used Ranger Gold Tinsel embossing powder.

The card was nearly complete. The only things that remained were to make a couple of panels and card base. The card base was made from Desert Storm cardstock and one panel was cut using a stitched frame die from Citrus Slice cardstock and a slightly larger one from Circus Peanuts cardstock.

There is one more step before assembly, using the stitched panel (Citrus Slice) and Altenew’s Grid stencil, I randomly blended some Mustard Seed distress oxide ink in the center, then a little Ripe Persimmon and Aged Mahogany in the center.

All that was left was to put it together by layering the two panels, adding some foam to the back, then adhere it to the card base. The leaves were applied using a bit of glue in the center and in random spots and the sentiment was added. To finish it off, Nuvo Bright Gold crystal drops were added in several areas.

And there it is… the first of many I hope of Autumn cards.

Thanks so much for joining me. See you next time ♥

Goodies  used: