Autumn is my favorite time of year, and the French Foliage stamp set, with its realistic looking leaves and collage-style images, is definitely my favorite of the season! It works so well with so many stamping techniques, too. I'm looking forward to trying emboss resist, watercolors, and pastels. But first, I had to experiment with the style that French Foliage perfectly lends itself to…layered stamping!
My card design was CASEd from 4everstamping at Splitcoast.
One thing I discovered right away about the French Foliage images—they would make a fantastic One Sheet Wonder! If you're not familiar with that term, it refers to random stamping over an entire sheet of card stock to create your own decorative paper, then cutting it up to use pieces on different cards. All of the images layer so perfectly with each other, so creating a Too Cool background is effortless!
For my randomly stamped background, I started with the script words in Night of Navy, then added leaves in Cajun Craze, More Mustard and Pear Pizzazz, and finished by filling in the white areas with Rich Razzleberry splotches and Pear postmarks.
I also used a little Vanilla Smooch Spritz on the background for some shimmer. The result was so pretty I didn't want to cover it up, but I need a base to place my cut-out leaves, so I used a torn and sponged strip of Vellum Paper.
I LOVE how the cut-out leaves look so REAL! For these, I inked the image in one color, then dabbed the edges in another color. Kind of a modified Rock & Roll technique. Once the leaf was stamped on Whisper White card stock, I sponged more color over the top to fill in the white areas.
My leaf color combos:
- Cajun Craze, dabbed in Rich Razzleberry, sponged in Razzleberry.
- More Mustard, dabbed in Cajun Craze, sponged in Mustard.
- Pear Pizzazz, dabbed in More Mustard, sponged in Mustard.
After cutting out the shapes, I sprayed them liberally with Vanilla Smooch Spritz, giving them a beautiful sheen. Be sure to click on the closeup photo to see how awesome they look!
Other Card Details: Greeting from Sincere Salutations, punched with the Scallop Oval and layered on a Decorative Label punch.
Be Inspired Contest
Have you found your inspiration, yet? Can't wait to see your projects! More details on how to win a FREE Halloween Frights stamp set at the bottom of this post.
Angie