Autumn Bouquet

Good Morning,

Today I have an wooden bucket filled with an Autumn bouquet.

The bucket was die cut using Susan's Antique Wooden Bucket die set.  It was colored and shaped and attached using dimensional tape.  This bucket is still available in Spellbinders Bundle.  

Susan's Black-Eyed Susan die set was used to create the two yellow flowers.  They were die cut using Susan's Specialty Cardstock, colored using OLO markers, and shaped using her Flower Tool Kit.

Three different color Asters were made using the Aster die set.  Susan has instructions on YouTube on how to create all the different flowers in her releases.  You can search -  Spellbinders Susan's Tierney Cockburn and type in name of flower you are looking for, or just scroll through to see all the different flowers she has instructions for using her die sets.

To complete this bouquet, I used Susan's Autumn Foliage die set.  I used Ranger's Distress Mica Sprays to color the leaves.  I have several tutorials on my blog on how to color autumn leaves using Mica Stains - one is at this link.

Creating dimensional berry branch tutorial

Good Morning,

What weird weather we are having!   Autumn did not last long.  We have already had some snow and now days of cold rain, frost and fog.   Good time to stay indoors and work on a few more Christmas cards.  

Today, I decided to experiment and see if I could create dimensional berry branches.  If you need directions on creating berries with the little Styrofoam balls, you can go to my blog on this  link.

Susan has several different berry branch dies.  I used one of them and die cut the berry branch using watercolor paper. Die cut two identical branches.  This is a little heavier weight than Susan's Specialty Cardstock that I use for creating her flowers. Color the branches either brown or green. 

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In order to create the branches so they could be dimensional in the arrangement, I cut the berry branch apart into small clusters and glued them to a piece of thin floral wire.  When cutting apart, place two identical branches together because you will glue one piece on top of the wire and one identical piece on the bottom.  This gives the berry branch stability.  The wire is thin so it fits along the center of the branch and the two glued pieces hold it inside the branch. 

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 Now you can glue the berries on to the berry branch on to each berry space on the branch.  I let them dry a little to set, then glue a few more on top in between the berries to create dimension.  Once they are dry, use a black fine tip pen to push down on top of each berry for realism.  When you are ready too insert the berry stems into your arrangement, you can cut off some of the extra wire below the berries.  With the berries on the wired branch, you can lift the ends up so they are very dimensional in your arrangement. This was a little extra work, but I really like how they look in the arrangement.  

 For my background, I used the Spellbinders Holiday Floral Swag 3-D embossing folder.  

Create the poinsettia using Susan's Poinsettia die set It was die cut using Susan's Specialty Cardstock, colored and shaped using tools from Susan's Flower Tool Kit.  In the ecnter I added green Styrofoam balls with yellow and red Prills on top.  

Susan's new American Holly die set was used for the holly.  They were die cut using watercolor paper, once shaped, clear crystal glaze was brushed on to give them the waxy appearance.  

Susan's Hemlock & Chickadee die set was used to die cut the hemlock branches.

For the sentiment, I used a GinaK foiled greeting.  It was die cut using a circle die and attached with dimensional tape.

Hope you have fun creating your dimensional berry branches.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Using Ranger Mica Stain for Autumn Leaves

Good Morning,

I have debated on doing this post.  Before Susan did her FaceBook  Live on Susan's Garden Club 2, (Tri Fold Card & Another Autumn Leaf Technique),  I used her Autumn Foliage die set and colored the leaves with Ranger Mica Stains.  I guess great minds think alike - LOL.   Our techniques use the same products but since our techniques are different, I decided to go a head and post my tutorial.

This is card created using Maple Leaves

These are the colors of Mica Stain I used to color the maple leaves.  Once you start coloring the leaves, you find you want to experiment with some of the other colors too.

Susan used glossy photo paper in her video and I used watercolor paper.  Instead of coloring the paper first then die cutting, I die cut the leaves then colored them.  I found, since these stains have mica in them, they create a glossy finish on any paper, which eliminates having to brush on clear gloss glaze after they are shaped. 

 

I placed the die cut leaves on a non-stick sheet inside a Splat Box.  You can put them in any box to keep the spray from going all over other things on your workspace.  Having them on the non-stick sheet helps to reuse the extra spray.  Once I have sprayed all the colors on the leaves, I turned them over on the sheet and used a wet baby wipe to pick up the extra spray and rub it on the back of the leaves so both front and back are colored.  I used tweezers from Susan's Flower Tool Kit to turn over leaves.  You may want to use plastic gloves to keep your fingers clean.  Dab off any excess spray on front/back, with a baby wipe or paper towel, and place on clean non-stick mat to dry.  Once dry you can shape.  I like to use a mechanical pencil to lightly draw on veins then use tweezers to shape.  

If you haven't used Mica Spray yet to color autumn leaves, I suggest you watch Susan's video too and you can decide which technique you want to try.  

I wanted to include this picture to show how shiny the mica spray is using regular card stock.

I hope I have inspired you to create some beautiful autumn leaves.  Be sure to check out all the new dies in Susan's new Birds & Bees Garden Release.  I appreciate your support by using the links I have provided below for ordering the products you need.  

Gathering Autumn Birch Leaves

Good Morning.  I hope you have a nice weekend.  In our area, the leaves have changed colors and the scenery everywhere is beautiful.

If you follow me, you know I have been busy creating a lot of leaves using Susan's Autumn Foliage die set in her new Birds & Bees Garden Release from Spellbinders.   I have used the Birch Leaf for this card.   I have a tutorial on my blog at this LINK.

For this card I was trying to do something very different from my usual card.  I decided to try and create an Autumn scene.  What do you think?  Did it come together ok?

This is a 5x7 inch card.  I cut a piece of white cardstock slightly smaller and lightly sponged two shades of blue ink on the upper 3/4 of the card.  Two shades of green were sponged on the lower portion.   For the bare tree branches, I used Susan's  Winter Bough and Evergreen Shrubs die set.  

I filled the bucket, from Susan's Geranium & Antique Bucket die set,  with Birch Leaves and a few Acacia branches.  On the side I created a small pumpkin using small egg dies from an old Easter die set.  A couple of sprigs of grass were added behind the pumpkin.  I used an old grass die from my stash.

A stamp from one of Susan's Quote's stamp set was gold embossed, fussy cut, sponged and attached with dimensional tape.

Tutorial for coloring Oak Leaves using ink pads and brushes

Hello Paper Crafters,

This is the second tutorial for coloring leaves in Susan's new Autumn Foliage die set.  This tutorial shows how I color Birch Leaves.  Susan demonstrates on her FaceBook Live Videos how she colors the leaves using OLO markers.  I prefer to color the leaves using ink pads and blending brushes.  When using bushes, it is easy to blend several different colors.

To get started, die cut a lot of the leaves out of watercolor paper.  Use the Leaf Tool in Susan's Flower Tool Kit and go over score lines in the die cut leaves.  

Below are a series of pictures showing the ink pads I used for each step of coloring the leaves.  I like blending a variety of colors.  

Be sure to over lap and blend the colors as you color.

Ater coloring the leaves on the front and back, use a fine line pen to draw over the score lines on the leaves.  

If you want, you can add dark spots onto the leaves that you often see on leaves that have fallen to the ground.  I use a stamp and dark brown ink and add a few spots on each leaf.

Once you are finished coloring the leaves, lightly spritz the backside of the leaves and shape them using the Tweezers from Susan's Flower Tool Kit.  Once they are shaped, I like to add a Clear Crystal Glaze over the top.  This not only gives a little shine to the leaves, it also helps to hold the shape.

I will have one more tutorial for coloring Maple Leaves.

Susan's new Birds & Bees Garden release plus other products I use are linked below.

Tutorial for coloring Birch Leaves using ink pads and brushes

Hello Paper Crafters,

Susan has a new Autumn Foliage die set in her Birds & Butterfly Garden release.  She has several FaceBook Live videos and YouTube videos on how to color autumn leaves using OLO markers.  I have used OLO markers many times to color my leaves  but I also like to color them using ink pads and brushes to blend colors.  Below I have a tutorial on the process coloring using ink pads and brushes.  

I am posting three seperate blog post, each showing a different leaf in this release - Birch Leaves, Oak Leaves and Maple Leaves.  

Die cut the Birch Leaves using Susan's Autumn Foliage die set.  Use the leaf tool from her Flower Tool Kit to go over the scored lines.   I work on the Waffle Flower Stencil Mat and Blending Brushes.   For me using ink pads and brushes is a quicker method of coloring.  I start by pulling out a lot of different ink pads that I feel will be great autumn colors.  I like to blend a variety of colors, which will be shown in these tutorials, but you can use fewer colors if you want.  I have used a lot of Altenew Ink Pads.  I wanted to let you know that Altenew has a new style ink pad for their inks.  I have linked similar colors of ink pads below.  

Brush Altenew Honey Drizzle ink, or any bright yellow ink,  on both sides of the die cut birch leaves.  (You can see all the leaves I have die cut in the tray at the top of this picture.)  I always like to color a lot more leaves than I need for the project I am working on.  

Bush Altenew Autumn  Blaze (bright orange) ink on lower portion of leaf.  You only need to do this on front of leaf.

Brush Altenew Paper Bag Ink over orange ink and slightly above the orange and around edges.

I like to add dark spots on the leaves.  I have a Stampin' Up! Itty Bitty Background stamp I have had for many years that I use to stamp Altenew Expresso (dark brown) ink on each leaf.  (This stamp set is no longer available from Stampin' Up! but can be found on eBay.) You can splatter ink onto the leaf for the same effect.  

To ephasize the veins on the leaf, use a fine line pen and lightly draw the line over the scored lines.  I like to use a grey pen but you can use green or any color you want for the veins. 

To make the leaves realistic, you need to shape them.  Spritz the back of the leaves with a light mist of water and shape using the tweezers in the Flower Tool Kit.  

Shaped Leaves ready for a project.

I will be posting another blog post showing how to color Maple and Oak Leaves.  

New Release

Good Morning.  I am happy to tell you that you can now purchase Susan's new Birds & Bee Garden release from Spellbinders and Scrapbook.com.  I have the links at end of this post to both the bundle package (bundle available just from Spellbinders) for this release and the individual die sets and embossing folder. 

The card above is 6x6 inches.  I first created the background.  A 5 3/4 inch piece of white cardstock was covered with a piece of double sided adhesive - making sure the entire side is covered with the adhesive sheet. Glue this cardstock to the front of the card.   Leave the protective covering on the top side for now.  ( You can purchase this in sheets and cut it to size.)    A piece of 6 inch design paper was cut in strips.  It was first cut in half diagonally - upper right corner to bottom left corner.  Strips were then cut off each side - a few 1/4 wide and a few 1/2 inch wide from each side, leaving the corners larger.   Pull the protective covering off the front and start adding the pieces of design paper to the adhesive.  Start by attaching the corners, then adding the strips across the middle of the card, working from the corner pieces toward the center.  You  will have exposed strips of adhesive left on the card front.  Using gilding flakes, fill in the exposed areas.  Be sure to rub the flakes in well.  

You can see the shine of the gilding flakes better in this picture.

For the floral arrangement, I created three Black-eyed Susan flowers using Susan's new die set.  Susan has tutorials on YouTube showing how to create all her different flowers.  You can search Spellbinders Susan's Garden for these videos.  To create Susan's flowers, I use her Specialty Cardstock.  You can color using markers or brush/sponge on ink.  They are shaped using Susan's Flower Tool Kit and assembled using Beacon Kids Glue or Bearly Art Glue, which I like to put in the Sili Glue Pod. After shaping, I place them in Susan's Flower Mold,until dry,  so they hold their shape.  

Another new die set in this release is the pretty Pom Pom Dahlia.  I created one burgundy dahlia for this arrangement.  I love creating this pretty flower.  Be sure to watch Susan's video for easy instructions.

For the foliage, I used Susan's new Autumn Foliage die set.  All the leaves were colored in autumn colors, shaped and Crystal Clear Glaze added to them for a little extra shine.  I also used Susan's Lemon Verberna die from an earlier release. Small styrofoam balls were colored with alcohol ink and added for the berries.  A little ladybug that was die cut using the die in the Pom Pom Dahlia die set was added and Clear Crystal Glaze added.

One of Susan's stamps was used for the quote.  It was black embossed, fussy cut, and sponged with light yellow ink.  It was attached with dimensional tape.

The Birds & Bees release is so fun to work with to create your autumn creations.  

Links to products used are shown below.  

Thanks for visiting my blog. 

Pumpkin Tutorial

Good Morning Paper Crafters,

Autumn is here and a lot of us are creating cards with Autumn flower and leaves.  A fun container for floral arrangements is a pumpkin.  If you don't have a pumpkin die, you can create a pumpkin using oval layering dies.  

Depending on the oval dies you have, you can create different shapes of pumpkins.  You can create it using just five die cut ovals or up to seven ovals.  

For this pumpkin, I used elongated ovals and I used seven - two of the largest, 2 of the next size down, and three smaller.

Before arranging the ovals into a pumpkin shape, I brushed on a slightly darker ink for shading around the edges.  I used a 3-D embossing folder for the background and brushed the same ink over the raised design.  To attach the ovals to the background, I used dimensional tape in the center back and glue around the outside edge and bottom of each oval.  The dimensional tape created shadows around each edge.  

To fill the pumpkin I used Susan's Specialty Cardstock and used the Black-Eyed Susan, Pom Pom Dahlia and Chrysanthemum die sets for the flowers.   OLO markers were used to color the flowers. They were all shaped using Susan's Flower Tool Kit and assembled using Bearly Art Glue.  For fillers around the flowers, I used Susan' new Autumn Foliage die set for the colorful foliage behind the flowers.  The bird was die cut using the Hemlock, Cone and Chickadee die set.  One of Susan's stamps was used to gold emboss the sentiment.  Just the word 'Autumn' was cut off one of the quotes because I didn't have room for a larger sentiment.    

I hope this tutorial helps you create a pumpkin for your Autumn arrangements.