FAUX LEATHER

Do you remember a few weeks ago when I die cut all those leaves? 

Well, I found a use for one of them!

This oak leaf was the perfect candidate to serve as the focal point on my card that featured an easy, but cool, technique. The technique is referred to as Faux Leather. It is similar to a lot of cards I've made in the past in which I crumple up either tissue paper or the top ply of a decorative napkin. The difference in this particular technique, relies on one further step.

Basically you use a piece of light-colored cardstock, preferably cream or white, to fit on the front of the card that you intend to create. Take a piece of tissue paper or napkin that is about an inch or so larger on all sides than the base cardstock, and crumple it up in your hands. Unfold it slightly, crumple again, and do this same thing three or four times, until you have some interesting creases going on.

For my card, I happened to use a piece of bright orange tissue paper -- the kind you put in gift boxes/bags. 

Once your tissue is crumpled and flattened out SLIGHTLY -- DON'T FLATTEN OUT ALL THAT LOVELY CREASING YOU JUST DID! -- add glue stick to the entire surface of the cardstock you plan on using. Be sure to get glue all over, especially the edges and corners. Then, carefully place the crumpled tissue atop the glued piece. DON'T SMOOTH! Simply push down delicately on the tissue with your fingers. If you smooth and push too much, you will flatten out all that wondrous texture. And that is the point of this technique! Once the tissue is adhered completely to the cardstock. add a line of glue along the edges of the reverse side of the cardstock you added the tissue to, and carefully fold the edges of the tissue over this glue. When you are doing this, do it gently; don't pull on the edges. You could inadvertently flatten out the edge texture. 

On the reverse side, make sure that it is all held in place nicely. I actually used tape to hold the excess at the corners down flat.

Now comes the fun part. Take an ink pad in a coordinating color -- in this case, I used Pumpkin Pie ink with the bright orange tissue. Once again working very very gently, add the ink pad directly to the tissue paper. If you do it correctly, you will be hitting the highest portions of the tissue. Do you see what I'm referring to in my sample? The places on the background that are the darkest are the highest points which caught the ink. The areas that are more the original orange color were flattened more in my gluing process, so didn't have the raised dimension to catch the ink. Cool effect, eh?

Since I had a plethora of leaves to choose from, I tried many oak leaves (that size and shape was the best for this card) until I found the one with just the right color scheme, one that would complement the look of the background, rather than fight it.

Faux Leather is so easy and fun to do. It's almost foolproof -- that it, unless your hands are a little too aggressive. You definitely need a soft and soothing touch. Give it a try sometime!

P.S. These photos came out a little darker than the actual card is. Disappointing.Sorry.

Faux

Smiles.