Blog Party

Happy Blog Hop Day!  Thanks for joining us- I hope you’re cozy with a warm beverage of choice (tea, PSL, whatever floats your boat…) and ready for some autumn inspiration.  We are celebrating colorful autumn leaves today!  There’s 7 of us with projects to share, which means 7 chances to win a $25 gift certificate to spend in the store!  Leave comments along the way and please feel free to share about the hop & leave some comments on facebook too 🙂  We are giving away THREE gift certificates and will announce the winners on October 2!

Today I’ve got a pair of cards to share with you, both feature the new Nature’s Wonder stamp set by Tim Holtz, which includes a variety of gorgeous leaves & simple sentiments.  Unfortunately it seems to have been very popular and is a bit tough to get ahold of… I’ve paired it with some autumn shades of Distress Oxide Ink (Abandoned Coral, Aged Mahogany, Crushed Olive, Fired Brick, Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade), Copper Embossing Powder and on this card, Nuvo Embellishment Mousse in Cosmic Brown.

My background started with a variety of stamped leaves, each inked in two of the Distress Oxide Colors.  I then used an Ink Applicator & blending foams to add more color to the background.  I painted each of the leaves with a water brush to give the background a watercolor feel, and I also spritzed a bit of water over it as well.  It was very pretty, but a softer look than I wanted… so I selected a stencil with a bold design (this is an old clockworks stencil by Tim Holtz) and applied the Nuvo Mousse with a palette knife.  The directions said it could be applied thick or thin, so I started as thick as I could get it for lots of texture… then applied some thin swipes along the edges the design was not on.  It’s beautiful how it picked up the texture of the watercolor paper!

I added simple layers to the card, some stamped/embossed images which I fussy-cut (hopefully dies for this set are in a future release!), burlap paper (from my stash- this stuff is mounted on cardstock and it’s fabulous) and a simple but bold text block with a sentiment copper embossed on it.

For this second card, I started with the same background base of Distress Oxides, but decided to add some Nuvo Glimmer Paste in Moonstone over the stamped panel.  I simply smeared a bunch of it over the panel loosely just to see what it would do, and I kinda love it in all it’s imperfections!

My layers are different, but feature the same elements as my first card.  I like how this background turned out more vibrant than the first one, so I wanted to allow more of it to show under the cut leaves.  The glitter paste really picks up on the warm tones in my background!

And here’s the two cards together- along with some colorful leaves that have freshly fallen!

I hope you like my cards.  Autumn is my favorite season and you’ll be seeing a lot more autumn pretties from me in the coming weeks… but today, you get a variety of inspiration from our talented Design Team!  Enjoy!

Here’s the blog hop order:

• Tara/ SNS blog (you are HERE)
• Kia
• Amy
• Karen
• Laurie
• Jessica
• Nancy

Happy Hopping!  Be sure to leave comments along the way for a chance to win 🙂

Inky hugs,

Tara