Hello friends! Can you believe we're mid-way through October? Honestly, I can't. However, I am so ready for the holiday season I almost can't stand it. I've got the orange lights and pumpkins in place. Really, I cannot wait to break out the Christmas nutcrackers. With the fall spirit running through my veins, I thought it would be fun to play with the new Essentials by Ellen Autumn Acorns and create a Thanksgiving card using a fun little technique.
First I stamped all the leaves and acorns at the bottom on my card design.
While there are stamps designed perfectly to stamp inside these lines, I wanted to make them a little messier looking. I love the messy look but I like effortless mess! So, I simply flipped the stamp so that I stamped with the back of my clear stamp. This gives a bigger, solid stamped image that's not quite perfect but exactly for the look I was going for - perfectly imperfect and without the mess!
All of the inks I used for this technique are Hero Arts. Hero Arts inks work great for this technique because the colors are gorgeous, smooth and allow that black stamped line to show through!
Here I used Hero Arts Forever Green.
Even if the back side stamping doesn't line up perfectly, like it does here with the pumpkin pie ink leaf,it still looks great.
I always wait to finish the accent stamps to know exactly where I want them to go. Here I've added the berries with Hero Arts Red Royal ink.
I stamp my way through a project like this slowly, depending on how I like the colors, I might save something for the end like I did here. I wasn't sure what color I would want that acorn, so I saved that for the end.
Then, to give it more painted interest, I stamped the berries in Golden Glitz Delicata ink in the leaves, acorns and event he white space.
Stamped a sentiment. (Don't get attached, I changed my mind next!)
To fill in the white, I stamped a background stamp over the top of everything. After stamping the background, I realized it was a little too much for the sentiment so I went to work re-working the sentiment.
I used this Paper Smooches Frame die to create the perfect mat.
Then, I used my Die-namics Doily die and a Lawn Fawn banner die to create a mat for the sentiment. Does it remind you of a table setting? It does to me - pleasant surprise fitting for the occassion!!! I also added a little stitching along the bottom with my new Pretty Pink Posh border die! Again I made a last minute change, I ended up taking off the gold thread bow. I felt like it competed with the sentiment.
