Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Can we Celebrate Autumn with a Painted Christmas?

How about an Autumnal Christmas?

You are probably thinking this title sounds a little strange, right?  I agree, it does.  Sometimes when I choose a stamp set or product suite to feature for a week, I like to challenge myself to use it in an unexpected way.  That wasn't really my plan going into this week, but the day I was making this card was a beautiful, sunny, warm, summer, day and the best I could do was get into an Autumnal mindset.


When I looked at all the different types of leaves and branches in the Christmas Season Stamp set, I thought, "these don't have to be Christmas branches, do they?"  So I decided to stamp them in what I consider the warm colors of autumn -- yellows, reds, greens, copper and rusts.  I just started stamping them in all our different Stampin' Up! shades of those colors with no real plan in mind.  Between you and me, that is not at all like me!  I like to have a plan, and the more etched in stone it is, the happier I am.

After I die cut all the leaves with the coordinating dies, I wondered what I was going to do with all of them so started looking around for inspiration.  When I looked out my door wall, this is what I saw--these vegetables hanging over a brick wall.

Next Door Inspiration!

That put me on a search through my stash of designer series paper to see what I had, and I found this Cinnamon Cider brick design from Bloom Where You are Planted.  The color was perfect with my Autumnal colored leaves and it had a coordinating woodgrain pattern that worked well with the brick.  Sometimes, even when there is no plan, things seem to come together!

After that, it was really just a matter of assembly!

The sentiment is from one of my go-to sentiment sets, Peaceful Moments.  Isn't this sentiment so true?  Life really is better with great friends!  I used another die from the Seasonal Labels Dies for the sentiment.  These dies include small dies to create the slots in the die cuts so it is very easy to thread a pretty ribbon through the die cut.




I'd had such fun stamping all the different leaves in different colors for the front of the card, that I decided to do some more stamping on the inside.  I randomly stamped more leaves in the same colors of autumn across the top of the inside leaving plenty of empty space below to write a note to a special friend that I'll send this card to.  I hope when you make cards you send them to someone!


If you would like a free tutorial for this card, please use this link to access it.

I'd love to hear what you think about this non-Christmas card made with the Painted Christmas Suite.  Would you take a minute and leave me a comment?

Below is a complete list of all products used for this card.



Product List
Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad
Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad
[131173]

2 comments: