These cards are for my monthly card exchange and I was looking to use some backgrounds from my stash! This first card uses a piece of beautiful junk mail that I saved a while back. It features a large leaf in this deep autumnal red. I cut out the wording and taped the two pieces together. I auditioned my focal element which was all ready to go and thought it needed a bit of something so I embossed it with Decorative Dots embossing folder (SU). That was good but still not quite it, so I sanded the dots and that was better but still not perfect, so I sponged some of the areas with orange ink and that was just what it needed. Perfect!! I cut two thin strips of brown cardstock and laid one over the joint in the paper and the other about a 1/4" below it. I used double sided tape to adhere them to the background and trimmed the ends to the edges. I glued the background element to a dark brown card front and then used 3D foam tape to adhere the focal element over them. The focal element was fun to create. I started by making a collaged button using clear plastic, a stamped greeting and a decorative paper punchie like I did for
this card. Once it was dry I could not convince myself to punch holes to make it a button so I used it as it was. I layered it onto a scallop punchie (SU) in gold, then onto a brown & gold texured paper circle and then onto a flower (TH) die cut from hand decorated paper. I really like the look of this card with all of its handmade charm. If you know the source of the brown and gold paper medallion I have used for this card check my featured post on the top right hand side of my blog and leave me a comment!!
For my second card I created another funky focal element. I started with a "be happy" punchie from my stash which I glued to a scallop punchie which I modified with watercolour to coordinate with the orange from the larger scalloped circle. I layered that onto a collage button which was less than stellar after it was dry and needed to used more subtly. I layered that onto a scalloped punchie of colourful decorative paper and then to another one of those brown and gold paper medallions. (Look forward to your comments!) This time I snipped the edge to create little petals and then snipped those twice to make little flagged ends to finish off my embellishement. I chose this wild background which I created a while back using spray inks, my hot glue stencils and photo paper. A really fun technique!! I added a wide navy organza ribbon with a thin yellow satin ribbon over it to my background and then glued it to the front of an orange card. I tied a short piece of yellow ribbon to the one on the card to simulate a bit of a bow and used 3D foam tape to secure my focal element to my card front.
So these will be off to my swap partners in tomorrow's mail!!
Therese
