*garbled with a mouthful of organic kielbasa* Good afternoon. It’s October! Raise your hand if you love October. The sight of changing leaves. The smell of maple. Pumpkins in all sizes, shapes, and colors. Oh this all makes me smile.
Tennis season is now half over. Earlier this month the team texted and emailed family and friends to raise money for the team fund for future uniforms, tournaments, etc. A couple of our relatives dug into their wallets and donated. So for the past week I’ve been working on a design for thank you cards.
The background was the easiest as I pretty much knew what I wanted to do because lately, I have been obsessed with paper collage and gesso! In addition, collaging makes me think of peeling wallpaper, something I wanted to recreate here.
Materials used
- I took paper that had texture and paper that had prints, rippled them into pieces – sometimes saving corners – and then glued them down with Ranger Distress Collage Medium. I wasn’t worried about covering up the bottom of the cut cardstock because I knew I was going to have something down there.
- I then brushed gesso over them. Gesso is basically watered down, white paint and yeah, it smells like it too.
- I didn’t want the gesso to be so white so I thought I’d try to color it. I blotted down Distress Ink in Hickory Smoke on a piece of Saran Wrap (yeah, that’s my cheap craft sheet). I spritzed water onto the ink which makes it bead up as Distress Ink is water-based.
- However, after swiping each piece of cardstock through this, I found it washed some of the gesso away (duh) and there wasn’t much color. The light bulb went on (ding!), having me remember that I had a bottle of Distress Stain in Hickory Smoke. So I sprayed that from high above. These are my results, ones I was much happier with.
- Now for the bottom pieces. I was still in love with the blended, Distress Ink background I had used for El’s card. I really wanted to use that color palette again. So with the thought of a wall of layers of old wallpaper, I decided to score rectangles of wainscoting that would enable me to use the color scheme of Frayed Burlap, Walnut Stain, and Black Soot.
- They’re inverted in this photo here below obviously. I spritzed water from high above to get those water drops and distress look.
Okay, here is where I got stuck. I got the background nailed but what to put on top? I wanted to use my three-tier luggage stamp but what else to decorate with it?
On Pinterest I created a board of real life inspiration for my card making. On it I pinned pictures of vintage luggage that were used as decor inside and outside and rooms that had peeling wallpaper. But most of these examples either use the luggage as furniture or the featured wall had simple furniture in front of them. I didn’t have furniture stamps and I wasn’t in the mood to draw and cut out pieces. So I had to sit on the design for a couple of days.
This past weekend I experimented with two ideas:
I. Crumbling wall outdoors, trees, sky, & butterfly stamps could be the 3-D elements
- Well, I didn’t like how bright my green, pigment ink was with the original, color scheme; they seemed to clash.
II. Crumbling wall outdoors but have the sky be a Parisian one at night since the teenager was taking French
- I experimented with my cloud stencil and with different blues until I got it just right.
- I stamped a stacked, trio of hearts and added twine.
- The luggage, mounted on foam tape, has a tag of Bon Voyage so I made new tags to say Merci.
- And there are those 3-D’d butterflies. I swear they make the best 3-D elements. I may get more as Tim Holtz has a set of them or maybe the entomology set of bugs.
- I only over stamped the sky area so the crumbling wall would showcase the collaged papers and the blended inks.
Here are the results:
I am very pleased with these final results. I cut pieces of cardstock to place in front of each card in its envelope so each one will run smoothly through the USPS machine. The envelopes are addressed and the ninth grader’s school picture is nestled in every card. Now my daughter has to write her short messages and then they can be mailed off.
Alright, my youngest and the neighbor’s kids are here doing their homework. I need to redirect the boy who is getting distracted. Thanks for dropping by today. TTYS.
Those note cards are beautiful. I hope the recipient’s understand the work and thought that went into each one.
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Hand raised! October has always been my most favorite month. Your cards are amazing, Stefanie. What a wonderful gift each one is.
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They are amazing!
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Thank you; I worked really hard on them and mostly because of that perfectionist within.
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Yes! October!!!!!!
You have so much fun, with your projects! They are great. But I think the fun you have, is the best part of them. :-))))
✨🍁✨🎃✨🍁✨
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love the cards and the way your used the suitcases and butterflies to pop! I do love when you talk about the paper stuff, it sounds so foreign to me and interesting to learn.
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The cards turned out beautifully!
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It’s so interesting to read about your process and how you come up with the ideas for the cards. They are beautiful!
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I think you are so talented Stefanie 🙂 The distressing is great and the card turned out beautifully!!!
BOTH my hands are up for loving autumn!!! 🙂
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Those cards are gorgeous! Your process is amazing.
And yay for Octobers!! Like Anne of Green Gables, I am so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers!
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Thank you! I love it when a design comes together.
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Those are so beautiful.. i’m in awe of the amount of work you put into it… so amazing.
http://www.henatayeb.blogspot.com
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You are so talented!
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Hi Stefanie!!
Wow this card is so beautiful! I love the design and how everything comes together to create that distressed and vintage look. Good job 🙂
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Thank you darling.
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