With Gratitude

Hi friends!  It's an overcast, blustery day here in Northeast Florida. We are really hoping and praying that "Nicole" won't be a big deal. It is concert weekend for the chorale, so this one kinda caught me a little off guard!  I will be so very thankful when hurricane season is behind us!  

Today's Stamp Simply project reminds me of the Bokeh photography that is often so popular during the snow/holiday season.   There were quite a few tutorials for the paper-crafted version a few years ago.  

I suppose I should call it "faux bokeh" because it is simply a beautiful piece of patterned paper with a few added splatters of diluted ink and acrylic paint underneath a colorful stamped and die cut floral focal point.  

For that focal point, starting from the bottom up:  the sentiment was stamped directly onto the designer paper with shimmery ink and then heat-embossed with gold embossing powder.  There is also a heat-embossed shock of wheat...it's hard to see but adds to the overall shimmer and sparkle of that bottom layer.

The die cut leaves were cut from card stock that had been smashed into puddles of diluted distress inks (mahogany and walnut) and then pressed into and dragged across a Delicata ink pad.  The "berries" are cut from shimmering gold card stock.

The pretty pumpkins on top were stamped and colored with Copic markers, then the die-cut edges sponged with tea dye distress ink to soften the contrast against the darker background.  

Then the entire card (inside and out) was splashed with diluted distress ink and white acrylic paint.  I tried to avoid splashing too much on that focal image because Memento ink and water don't necessarily get along all that well!

The inside is pretty enough to be an outside!  I stamped the leaf border with Memento ink, colored it with Copic markers, and added a hint of tea dye distress ink to its background.  Splattered the whole thing with diluted distress inks along with the front, and then added another die cut leaf next to the sentiment.

Here you can see how beautifully shimmery it is!  (I could not capture that for the card front no matter how hard I tried...you could either see the sentiment or the shimmer but not both!)

Although this card is dimensional, it does not have any pearls, rhinestones, or ribbon, so should be just fine to send through the mail without having it hand-cancelled.  It would be so pretty to glue one of those die cut leaves to the outside of the envelope so it would coordinate with the card inside!  

Supplies:

• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Seasonal Wreaths, Fall/Winter Bundle
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Falling Leaves Border Strip
• Stamp Simply Steel Dies - Two Sprigs
• Sizzix Thinlits Dies by Tim Holtz - Holiday Greens Mini
• Stamp Simply Clear Stamps - Autumn Blessings 
• Studio Light Wonderful Autumn 6x6
• Luxury Pearlescent Metallic 105# Cardstock - Gold 6 ct
• Delicata Non-Tarnishing Ink Pad - Celestial Copper
• Memento Full Size Dye Ink Pad - Espresso Truffle
• Zig Wink of Stella Brush - Clear Glitter Marker
• Copic markers
• metallic gel pen
• various distress inks
• white acrylic paint