Color powders and Color sprays are so much fun. I love sitting at my scrap table with my glass mat, a stack of different papers and my little box with color sprays and powders. And then I usually just go crazy and play like a child – with a little bit of thought on, what I mostly use my colored papers for and that would be to die cut flowers, leaves and text out of – and backgrounds offcourse. And to day’s card has lots of leaves die cutted out of that kind of paper.
Type of project: Card
Occasion: Fall/Autumn
Style: Mixed Media/Layering
Techniques used: Die cutting, Spray and Powder Coloring, Heat Embossing, Layering, Stamping
Decoration: Pearl Vellum
Main Colour: Gold + Brown and Autumn Golden Colors
Media used: Color Powder, Color Sprays, Embossing Powder
Equipment used: Die Cutting Machine, Heat Gun, Stamp Tool.
READ ALSO: THE COLORS OF AUTUMN – WHAT A COSY TIME OF YEAR
Apart from offcourse showing you my card, my intention is to dive into how I layer leaves (could also be flowers etc.)
When you have this kind of image inside your head and sit with your background in front of you, sometimes everything crashes completly and leave you totally empty – and you give up. To come from the image inside your head to the finished card can be very hard – almost impossible. But there are ways to push the process.
The first thing I did was to place my text, because that’s the most important thing on my card (In this case on a beautiful gel-plate background, I’ve been given by a fellow scrapper). Then I die cutted plenty of leaves and branches and the next half hour – hole hour or more I spend placering leaves etc. – move around, reshuffle, move back againn. And sometimes I leave the table for a while – you can stare blindly on a setup, which you after a nights sleep, can perceive completly differently. And then I take photos along the way – you look at the layout differently, when it happens through a camera. Then you suddenly see, that something’s missing in the left corner or that the branch above has a wrong turn. And if I’m in doubt about the placement of a leaf, I move the leaf back and forth and take photos of the different positions. It’s much more clearly seen on camera, what seems most well proportioned.
READ ALSO: THANKFUL FOR…
When I’m set on a layout, I againn use a photo as my memory. Yet I’ve never been able to make an exact copy, but it works as a guideline. When I layer the leaves, I start from the buttom. I pick out a couple of leaves, whose position are important for the layout to be harmoniuos and which I can use as fixation points. In this case it’s the leaves in the 3 corners.
And after this I glue the dark, horizontal branches, but only in one end, as the rest of the leaves must be placed according to them. Then I proceed – one by one from left to right. And I mostly only glue the leaves at the stem, because it gives me the possibility to stick something under + I like, that the leaf lifts a little. When I reach the end of the branches, I place the leaves on top of the branch-ends in stead of under , to make a nice end.
Then the rest is ordinary layering and finishing touches.
This card ended up being 13,3 x 21 cm.
I wish you an absolutly cosy and nice day – perhaps with a bit of leaf-layering and “hygge”spreading.
Heidi-Birgitte Mortensen is from Denmark. She has been writing for TPC since 2021. Heidi-Birgitte started paper crafting in 2016 and she makes cards, 3D and Mixed Media projects. Her paper projects are often made in Rustic, Vintage or Retro style.