The Card Concept - Autumn Love

Hello everyone!  I created today's card for The Card Concept Challenge this week.  You have two weeks to join us and play along using whatever inspires you from the image on the left.  Isn't that a wonderful cake with cute little owls sitting on top. And those wonderful leaves... Fall colors do make me feel happy -- almost as happy as spring colors do. And just look at what I think are wheat stems. Being a Kansas girl, that really appeals to me and oak leaves are somehow always fitting.  I'll tell you the truth here - I had a very hard time deciding which way to go with this week's inspiration but I finally decided that I wanted something pretty clean and simple with lots of white space like the cake.  I've been in "Merry Making" class this week at Online Card Classes where there have been some simple and some more technical techniques.  I've already done a post of one of those more technical cards and you can find it here. So while I like to learn new techniques to elevate a special card, I also appreciate really simple techniques.

This particular card was inspired by Gina Krupsky (a.k.a. Gina K Designs) and her technique on Day 3 of class.  This technique asked us to look at stamps that might already be on our desk or in our stash and use non-holiday stamps to create a Holiday card.  "All you need is a little sprig and a little berry" she said and it was true.  I loved this technique and have so many ideas for other stamps I have to try this out with.  I have already done four other cards using this technique and I love how clean and simple it truly is.

To start, you want to trace a shape such as a circle or oval onto your card front or card panel. I always stamp on a panel so that if I mess up (which if often do) I haven't destroyed the whole card. For this card I used the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Circle Die to trace my shape lightly in pencil.  That just serves as your guide to create your wreath shape.  I used the smaller branch from the Layered Laurel Stamp Set from Altenew.  I haven't gotten to use it yet as the layered set but I love it for this purpose of making a wreath.

It's a good idea to stamp on a piece of scratch paper to see how the size of your little sprig works and how many you'll need to create your wreath.  In my case on this card, I scrunched mine up a bit (closer) so that I could use two different colors of ink (Altenew Sand Dunes and Rocky Shores) to give it a bit more texture and depth.  I stamped about 6 times in Sand Dunes and 4 times in Rocky Shores. This made for a nicely full wreath yet still a lot of "white space". These inks are from the Altenew Ink Family "Coffee Break" and I like that they are a less yellow based tan.  I like taupe but not necessarily tan or Kraft unless it is just the right thing. 

I grabbed the small floral shape from the WPLUS9 Be Merry Florals and stamped it three times in Melon Berry Ink.  Next, I used 2 different berry stamps from the WPLUS9 Holiday Boughs Stamp Set. There are two small berries on one and a single berry on the other allowing me to stamp pretty much any pattern (or lack thereof) that I wanted.  To some groups of two I added a third and others I skipped but there was no rhyme or reason to what I was doing, I was just winging it. I spritzed it with some shimmer mist and die cut the panel with a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die.  I almost forgot my greeting so I lined up the die cut panel in my MISTI so I could be sure it was well stamped or that I could stamp a second time if needed.  I was almost done, so I didn't want to wreck it then. I stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder. I cut a larger rectangle die from Gold Foiled Cardstock and adhered them to a top folding card base made from Stamper's Select White Cardstock. Once that was finished I thought my card front needed a bit of dimension so I added Nuvo Crystal Drops in Golden Sunset and Stickles in Orange Peel to those berries.  I've had these for a number of years and that particular color is no longer available but there are two other oranges to choose from now if you follow the link.  There are also Orange Nuvo Drops in a few different styles found in the Simon Says Stamp Store.  This gives a bit of dimension but still allows for pretty flat mailing. Since I mail almost 100% of my cards, I like using this versus gemstones.

I can't wait to see what everyone else creates for this challenge.  I have been making a ton of wreath cards and today will be making another for a different challenge so I am getting in lots of practice. Thank you so much for coming by to see my card and I hope you have time to join us.  The other Design Team Members always have inspiring cards so be sure to stop over and check them all out.