Trees & Leaves – Autumn is Coming!

Welcome to InKing Royalty’s August Blog Hop! During this year’s blog hops, we are having fun with our stamping favorites – our favorite themes for seasonal cards and projects. This month’s projects feature leaves and trees, so you are likely to find lots of inspiration for Autumn. We are excited to share our creations with you today! After you read my post, I hope you’ll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

I’ll be honest, I had no idea what I was going to do for this Blog Hop. Stampin’ Up! has so many amazing options os paper, stamps and dies that are related to trees and/or leaves – where does one even begin? So, I found myself scrolling through Pinterest and I saw a card that had the trees from the Inspiring Canopy dies bare against a background of paper from the Beauty of the Earth DSP. And that, my friends, was the inspiration for this card. I made a lot of changes, and what we see today is a tribute to the coming of the fall colors that is so quickly approaching. (How are we only 3.5 months from 2022 already???)

Here’s what I did:

Cut and Score with Your Paper Trimmer:

• Cinnamon Cider – 8 1/2 x 5 1/2, scored at 4 1/4 on the long side
• Soft Suede – 4 1/8 x 5 3/8
• Soft Suede – 4 x 5 1/4 (to die cut the trees)
• Beauty of the Earth DSP – 4 x 5 1/4
• A scrap of Basic White for your sentiment

Stamp using Enjoy the Moment:

• On the scrap of Basic White, the sentiment “a little note…” using Soft Suede ink

Die Cut with Tasteful Labels:

• Using the long skinny label that is notched on both ends, cut out your sentiment, placing the right side notch at the end of the ellipsis instead of centering as we normally would
• Now, align the die over what you just cut so that you will cut again on the left side, creating a shorter banner than the die creates on its own (as shown)

Die Cut with Inspiring Canopy:

• The 4 x 5 1/4 piece of Soft Suede – die cut the cluster of trees
• From 2 pieces of Expressions in Ink DSP, die cut 5 each of all the leaf clusters
  • From the piece of paper that has Pale Papaya flowers and orange leaves, strategically place the leaf clusters so that your cuts are mostly orange with some green (3 of each cluster)
  • From the piece of paper that has green and gold across the middle, cut 2 of each cluster from this green/gold combo (see photo below)
  • This will give our trees the appearance of being in the midst of their change for the fall, and also adds some beautiful gold foil to the leaves

Dry Emboss:

• Using the Bark 3D Embossing Folder, dry emboss the trees we just die cut

Assemble the Card:

• Burnish the score mark on the Cinnamon Cider card base
• Adhere the Soft Suede 4 1/8 x 5 3/8 panel
• Adhere the 4 x 5 1/4 DSP panel
• Glue your embossed tree trunks to the DSP using Multipurpose Liquid Glue
• Adhere the clusters of leaves. You will likely have some left over, unless you opt to go for thicker leaves than I did. I placed them so that each tree had mostly Pale Papaya leaves, with some green that hadn’t yet given up on summer
• Finally, use Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals to adhere your sentiment to the card front. I found that it fit very nicely between the two rightmost trees

I love how the Beauty of the Earth DSP gives the appearance of a color-changing forest behind the focal trees. Stampin’ Up! has amazing artists who design the most beautiful papers for us to use in our creative endeavors! And often, papers that you wouldn’t even think would go together, compliment each other perfectly when used in a non-traditional way. Take a look at the Beauty of the Earth DSP and the Expressions in Ink DSP stock photos – who would seriously choose to use these together in a project?? ME! That’s who, and now you will too! Don’t let yourself be constrained by what’s normal or obvious!!

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you’ll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, Candy Ford of Stamp Candy. There’s lots of inspiration to be found in this group – and you don’t want to miss it!

Thank you for hopping along with us. If you get stuck during the Blog Hop, please use this line-up as a guide:

1. Brian King at Stamp with Brian
2. Lynn Kolcun at Avery’s Owlery
3. Renae Novak at Blessed by Cards
4. Jackie Beers at Blue Line Stamping
5. Sue Jackson at Just Peachy Stamping
6. Robin Myren at Songbird Designs by Robin
7. Sheryl Abernathy at Elegant Sentiments
8. Lisa Graham at Lisa’s Little Ink Spots
9. Sheryl Sharp at Sharp Notes by Sheryl
10. Joanne Brown at The Inky Dragon
11. Candy Ford at Stamp Candy

Today’s Colors:

Products Used Today: