Autumn Colours

Here are a couple of cards which I made today, just playing around with various techniques I've picked up recently.

The first one was made by masking off the front of the card with Post-its and sponging colour into the gap. I used deep red, orange and yellow. At first the colours were a little too distinct so I went over all of them with a sort of terra cotta or brick colour, it's a Papermania ink but doesn't have a colour label on it. Once I was satisfied with the overall colour, I stamped the leaves with the same terracotta colour, then took off the masking and printed the final three leaves in deep red overlapping the edges of the sponging.

The sentiment was intended to be directly on the card, but I dropped the inky stamp and made a splodge. As I was pleased with the rest of the card, I didn't bin it, but merely made another sentiment and die-cut it before it adding to the card... over the evidence of my ineptitude!

This next one, inspired by Susan over at the Simplicity blog, uses the same leaf stamp from Kodomo Inc, partially stamped onto each of the Sizzix tags, using gradually deepening autumnal shades.

The Dovecraft ribbon is a beautiful shade of deep red which I bought for 99p recently in the Paper Mill shop. I wish they'd had more I would have got some extra.

The bows were made using my bow maker and the sentiments on both cards are from Stampin' Up.

I've now got to get busy making about 10 Welcome Home cards for a friend of mine who is a travel agent. She likes to send her clients a card for when they return home from their rather swish holidays!

No time to Stamp - Falling leaves

Aud's Sentiments - Best Wishes

The Wild Flower Patch - Fall Colours

The Secret Crafter - Clean and Simple

I also just discovered a blog, Creative Belli Blog, where the challenge is to use OLD STAMPS. Well, this leaf stamp comes from a set which I bought yonks ago and have only just rediscovered. I haven't actually found the complete set, I must keep digging!