As I watch the leaves spiral madly from the trees in our back yard today, I look at some of my stamps differently. For instance, the weeping willow from Primitive Beginnings never shouted "fall" to me before, but today it begged to be used with the colors in Basic Grey's Indian Summer papers. (This paper is also available in a 6" x 6" pad; I just happened to have a few sheets of the 12" x 12".)
To ink the tree, I started with four Adirondack ink pad colors and one water-based dark brown marker. I inked the inside top leaves with Lettuce ink, then Sunset Orange below the green, Terra Cotta at the very top, and Cranberry at the very bottom. I used the corner of my ink pads and didn't really mess my ink pads up at all. For the tree trunk and branches, I used a water based brown marker directly on the rubber, then huffed on the rubber to re-moisten it before stamping my paper. (If you aren't pleased with your first try, be sure to clean your stamp before re-inking, or you may end up with muddy colors.)
To add a bit of background and "ground" the tree, I tore a piece of Eclipse paper and used the top half to mask for airbrushed grass (Copic YG95), and the bottom half to mask for a hint of sky (Copic Y32).
For the patterned paper background, I chose the brown leafy sheet as my base and accented it with the striped layer and the rose-toned layer, using the Binding Edge punch as well as some machine stitching to add interest.
This card started out quite normally, as you can see by the progression of pictures. When I got close to the end, however, it seemed to need something--like a bit of whimsy. I added the sheep and paper pieced him with some of the Indian Summer paper. Of course that made him need a creative sentiment, right? Finally "Home is where the heart lives" became "art lives" and my sentiment was born.
That's it--an evolution from fall to whimsy. Sometimes your creativity doesn't take you where you thought you were going, but it generally works out anyway. Enjoy the journey, and thank you for visiting the CLASSroom today!
