Autumn Blessings

This is my first fall-themed card this year. I love, love, love fall. It's hands-down my favorite season of the year. I love the cooler temperatures (our summers are very hot and humid), the clear blue sky and the crispness in the air. We've already had some cool days. We even had to turn our heat on for a little while today.

I'm submitting this card for two challenges - the weekly challenge on the CardMaker Card Swap forum and the Stampin' Sisters in Christ Challenge #108.

For the CardMaker challenge this week, Rhonda challenged us to make a fall card without using any fall-theme designer paper. Instead she wanted us to create our own background paper. I decided to try a new technique (for me) to make my background paper, but as often happens it didn't turn out right.

What I wanted to do was the Alcohol Ink Faux Bleach technique. With this technique, you stamp an image with Versamark on white glossy cardstock then heat emboss it with clear. You sponge the alcohol inks all over the paper, then cover the image with a piece of plain white cardstock and iron over it to remove the embossing. The image you stamped then shows in white with the alcohol ink colors on the rest of the piece. The technique was beautiful in the demo video I watched, but mine - not so much. I think maybe my stamp was too detailed and didn't quite get stamped all the way either. Soooo - I just made my background by sponging the fall color alcohol inks all over the paper and I think that turned out pretty well.

On top of my background I made six little fall theme squares. In the upper left is a square punched from my failed background technique. The pumpkin in the next square is cut from a vintage seed packet image that I dowloaded from The Graphics Fairy (awesome site for FREE vintage images!). For the next square I sprayed a piece of cheesecloth with some homemade glimmer spray made from Vintage Photo Distress Ink and Aztec Gold PearlEx powder. I love the look of these sprays but never wanted to pay the prices for the ready-made stuff. You can search for "homemade glimmer mist" on YouTube for how to make this. It's super easy. I then punched three leaves from the background paper left from trimming down my piece and glued them on top of the cheesecloth.

In the lower left corner is a stamped sunflower that I colored with watercolor pencils, sponged on a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink and cut it out. Next is my sentiment, which I printed on the computer. I added a little stamped leaf and a flower with a little button and some twine, then sponged on an little of the Vintage Photo ink. The final square is another square punched from my faux bleach image. After I had everything glued to the background paper, I sprayed the whole thing with some of the homemade glimmer spray.

The theme for this week's Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge is to use the word "blessings" or a piece of scripture on your card. I just found this challenge blog a couple of weeks ago and this is my first time to participate in the challenge. They post wonderful inspirational stories with their challenges and I am happy to have found a challenge that also helps me profess my Christian faith. I'm looking forward to getting to know and fellowshipping with other women who share my faith and my passion for stamping and paper crafting.

Thanks for looking!