Wednesday's Worktable with Charlene - Polished Leaves

Hello stamping friends!  Can you believe we are almost to September?  That means fall will soon be here for those of us living in the northern United States.  Fall happens to be one of my favorite seasons.  The air is crisp and fresh, and I love the smell of the fallen leaves.  Therefore, I chose to make a masculine, fall-themed card for your viewing pleasure this week.

(click on photo for a closer view) 

I used the beautiful leaf images from Rubbernecker's Leaf Group (SKU #868 869 870) and the Grid background (SKU #451).  The grid background was heat embossed with copper embossing powder.

 I used the polished stone technique for the leaves.  Polished stone is a very simple technique with beautiful results.  I did this by applying drops of Adirondack inks in Lettuce, Butterscotch, Hazelnut, Cranberry, and Copper Mixative onto the felt pad on my Ranger blender tool (you can also use a cotton ball), along with a couple drops of Adirondack Alcohol Blending Solution.  I dabbed the felt all over a piece of glossy white cardstock, which creates the polished stone effect.  I then stamped the large leaf three times using Stazon Black ink onto the polished stone cardstock and cut them out.  You can see that I ended up using only one of the leaves here;  I'll keep the other two in my stash for future cards.  I inked the smaller leaf from this stamp set in the Adirondack Cranberry ink pad and then applied Adirondack's Copper Mixative on the leaf's outer edge.

Here are a couple close up photos of the leaves.  Aren't they pretty with this technique?

 

 
See the orange designer paper behind the checkerboard dry embossed vanilla cardstock?  I edged it in copper with copper embossing powder.  I did this by laying a post-it note that was slightly smaller in size to the orange paper over it and running my Versamark marker pen around the outer edges before applying the embossing powder.  It's a nice way to get a matted effect when you don't have the color cardstock you want.....in my case copper.

To finish off the card,  I used a straight-edge corner punch on two opposing corners of the grid background and finished the card off with the three copper brads.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Comments

[Lorraine]

That certainly is beautiful. I could see a whole bowl full or wreath done with those flowers.

[Joanne]

Stunning and the color combination is wonderful.

Joanne

[Diane tuggle]

Wow,these leaves look so real

[Kittie Caracciolo]

CHarlene, These leaves are stunning. They look like they just fell off the tree. What an amazing technique. I am going to give it a try. Your card is so lovely.

[Bev Gerard]

Jiminy Cricket!
Now where in the world is my embossing powder?!? Who knew this background could look so dimensional and "real"!?!~

Leave it to Charlene to "see" the possibilities!

~Bev

[Charlene MA DT]

Amazingly beautiful, Charlene...I see I need more Adirondack inks!

[SherylH]

Beautiful -- love the use of the grid background and the gorgeous leaves.