AUTUMN BIRTHDAY

When I was finished with the background of this card, it just seemed to me to fall flat. No zip whatsoever. I had simply stamped the leaves and acorns in various autumn colors randomly across Naturals White cardstock. It just wouldn't do.

Now, I needed to put on my Paper Seedlings thinking cap, and come up with a way to give this drab ol' background some snappy pizzazz.

What I ended up doing was pat VersaMark ink sporadically over the blank paper and the leaves. I then sprinkled the sticky ink with Gold Embossing Powder. Before I heat embossed it, I flicked away a lot of the embossing powder, so it wasn't very thick in any one place. After I heated it, there was a precious gold glimmer in enough places to make it look really interesting and a little rustic.

Unfortunately, this is one of those cards that looks MUCH better in real life. The photo just did not capture the metallic richness the embossing gave it.

This close-up photo, although it looks sort of awful at this distance, shows the glimmer of the gold a bit better. 

I think this card is just like the Impressionist paintings: Don't look at it too closely; it looks much better from a distance.

After sponging the edges of the background and the piece that holds the sentiment, I mounted them onto black cardstock to make everything pop even more. I also embossed the sentiment in Gold, but did not use my Embossing Buddy so I would have stray specks of embossing powder to echo the background. An antique button with Baker's Twine adds just the right touch to the sentiment. Layered onto Rich Razzleberry, the card is complete.

Have you ever experienced this same thing? You've created something that looks great a foot or so away from your eyes, but get it closer, and it isn't nearly as appealing? Frustrating, but it worked for the Impressionists, so it works for me.

Autumn

Smiles.