One Last Autumn Card...

I have one last autumn birthday card to share with you before I dive head-first into the Christmas season. :)

This is a masculine card, so I couldn't really use the flowers and feminine touches that seem so natural for me to use. This time I went with a leaf theme, with burlap, cheesecloth, hemp cording, shabby embossing powders, and multi-layered pieces, to give a textured and festive look. A little dry-brushing of white craft paint around the dark brown edges, and the green die cut edge around the orange frame, brighten up the card a bit and give it a worn and shabby, but still masculine, look...

Since I had a large digi image in the center, I decided to place my embellishments in opposing corners, top and bottom. On the bottom cluster, there's one large punched leaf edged with bronze glass glitter. Beneath it is a scrunched piece of cheesecloth, and a few thin strips of partially unraveled burlap. There's a double-loop hemp cording bow, three threaded buttons, and a few bronze and grey pearls holding the end of the sentiment banner.

Here's a little hint to keep your burlap strips from unraveling more after you've gotten the final look you want...use some clear liquid glue (or, if you're a sewer and have some handy, Dritz Fray-Check) and coat the ends to glue them in place. The glue will be invisible when it dries, and the ends will keep that perfectly unraveled look you worked so hard to get. :)

I like to "shape" my sentiment banners over a rounded pen (or any other round object I can quickly grab as I'm working along). Place the center of the banner over the pen and use your fingers to lightly shape the little bump in the center, then wrap the end of the banner in the opposite direction around the pen to make the end bend upwards...

Up in the top right corner is another smaller cluster, with the shabby unraveled burlap strips beneath the punched and glittered leaves...

I used lots of layers and foam tape on this card. The brown embossed cardstock layer is raised up from the green layer with foam tape. The green layer is raised up from the digi collage picture using foam tape. And finally, the orange die cut frame is raised from the green cardstock layer using foam tape. I love the dimensional and shadowed look that the use of foam tape can add to an otherwise "flat" card - I buy it 2-3 rolls at a time so I'm never without it in my stash...

Supplies:

Dies:   Spellbinders Labels 22

Embossing folder:   Cuttlebug Kassies Brocade          Leaf Punch:   Marvy Uchida

Silver & gold pearls:   Creative Imaginations 

Embossing powders:   Stampendous Frantage Vintage Silver, and Vintage Gold

Miscellaneous:   bronze glass glitter, burlap, cheesecloth, hemp cording, white craft paint

Digital collage elements:   Music paper background:  FreeVintageDigiStamps.blogspot.com;   fall leaves:  TuckDB.org

Thanks so much for visiting today. I'm off to visit with my Mom again tomorrow, then back home this weekend where I hope to get the big Christmas tree up and decorated...wish me luck! :)