Festive Fall Cards
Fall brings changes. The leaves are still in the trees and the colors are coming in: green, gold, orange, and red.
Parchtone, Aged, 80 lb cover offers subtle texture, with an aged antique effect. After scoring and folding in half, a full sheet of the Aged. Complement the matte tones with Shine, Copper, 107 lb cover, cut to 5″ x 5.5″ and center using ScorTape. The Copper provides a border for Parchtone, White, 80lb cover, cut to 4.25″ x 4.25″. Cut a tree from the die cut positioned .25″ from the top, and centered side by side.
The die cut for this tree is Memory, Box, Arboscello Tree, or use what you have. Save the White tree for later. Cut 2 more trees from Crush, Coffee, 81 lb text and Stardream Metallics, Fine Gold, 105 lb text. Mount them: Coffee first, then the Fine Gold, and last cut a few branches from the White, and place on top in the tree shape, referring to the photo. Offsetting them will add dimension and allow the back branches to show through.
Add a line of Stardream Metallics, Black Onyx, 105 lb cover, under the trees, 3/8″ wide and the full length of the card. Referring to the photo, add more White, 1″ x 4.25″, to the bottom. The White will come up a little onto the Onyx and will provide a base for all the leaves.
Getting out the Martha Stewart punches, or anything similar, add leaves around the tree and a few for the base. For the Shine, Red Satin, 80 lb text, use a 1″ leafy punch. The next bigger set of leaves are fun. Using ScorTape, or something similar, (shown is Silhouettes Double Sided Adhesive Sheet) remove one side of the backing and add stripes of Basis, Orange and Teal, 80 lb cover, and Stardream Metallics, Aquamarine, 105 lb cover, in uneven stripes of color that are not lined up, add some Gilding Flakes and burnish them, or substitute in the Fine Gold.
Using Martha Stewarts bigger 1″ leaf punch, 42-25009 Stamp And Punch Set, cut out (add a dot of glue). It is the spread of color, summer through fall, that makes it sparkle. For some tiny texture and sparkle, use Copper scraps and a tiny 3/8″ Recollections, Maple Leaf, punch and add 11 little leaves across the bigger leaves at the bottom. Using the same little punch, add some little gilding flake leaves in the air, coming down, and one shiny white leaf from the ScorTape backing.
What makes the card come to life is the contrast of the Parchtone and the shiny papers all mixed into small sections of texture and color. Parchtone is another product from the French Paper Mills, in Niles Michigan, made responsibly with hydroelectric energy since 1922. Shine has combined natural minerals with organic pigments for a luminous effect without using metals or foils and is FSC certified. Crush, of course, is also a responsible earth friendly manufacturer of paper, using process residues from organic products to replace up to 15% of virgin tree pulp, in this case, coffee residue, a very dark chocolate brown. Basis is made from sustainable forests. It is an uncoated, two-sided paper, from another old-time American paper mill. They not only make the papers, but they began by making the equipment used to make the papers. All the above papers, including, surprisingly, the Shine, are both laser and inkjet rated. The Stardream papers are machine made in Italy by Neenah, also archival. The pearlized, two-sided, coating is manufactured without heavy metals. It requires an oxidizing ink- that translates to laser printing, which is what is recommended. Once you have the paper, you can experiment with inkjet. Success is printer by printer, but don’t stack them. I have done it and it prints slightly lighter since all that shine dilutes the color. Enjoy!
The following are the products used in this craft:
- Parchtone, Aged, 80lb cover
- Parchtone, White, 80 lb cover
- Parchtone, Aged, A9 Envelopes
- Shine, Copper, 107 lb cover
- Shine, Red Satin, 80 lb text
- Crush, Coffee, 81 lb text
- Stardream Metallics, Fine Gold, 105 lb cover
- Stardream Metallics, Black Onyx, 105 lb cover
- Stardream Metallics, Aquamarine, 105 lb cover
- Basis, Orange, 80 lb cover
- Basis, Teal, 80lb cover
