Welcome to InKing Royalty’s August Blog Hop! During this year’s blog hops, we are enjoying a year of celebrations. This month’s projects celebrate Autumn Weather, so prepare yourself for projects that are filled with warm tones and beautiful nods to the upcoming change in weather. We are excited to share our creations with you today! After you read my post, I hope you’ll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

CAS(E) this Sketch # 385

When I think of autumn, I think of a real autumn. Leaves changing and falling, cooler weather, raking leaves then running to jump in the pile we just finished raking, etc. Those are just some of my memories of autumn on Long Island as a child. I miss real autumn days.

Fast forward to many. many years later. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve experiences a real autumn. Florida doesn’t have autumn. We have less hot humid days. Actually, nothing about late September through November reminds me of autumn at all.

However, I’ve been creating between 20-25 Thanksgiving cards for sharing on with family and their friends on that day. My hope is that we are able to gather this year, but right now it doesn’t look like it will happen.

I combined the theme of autumn weather with the Gilded Autumn DSP to create a card using the CTS#385 challenge.

Here’s my card:

Here’s the challenge banner:

Clean and Simple

Just like the sketch, I wanted to keep this card clean and simple. While the background DSP at first looks busy, the clean lines of the Mint Macaron cirle with gold lines calms down the DSP. I added a barely there scalloped frame to the circle to give it some definition.

Just about everything, with the exception of the Very Vanillacardstock and envelope and the Early Espresso cardstock, comes from the Gilded Autumn suite. LOVE this suite and I am going to have to get more of the ribbon combo pack and the DSP.

Can we just talk about the sentiment for a minute? It’s font is gorgeous! Absolutely beautiful font, as all all the sentiments in the Autumn Greetings stamp set.

Measurements with Directions

• I used Early Espresso for the card base. It is trimmed to 4-1/4 inches by 11 inches, and scored at 5-1/2 inches. This card opens up.
• The mat for the front is the Crumb Cake splotch DSP from the Gilded Autumn set trimmed to 4-1/8 inches by 5-3/8 inches.
• I trimmed the top layer of DSP to 4 inches by 5-1/4 inches.
• Next, I adhered all three of these layers together using the multipurpose liquid adhesive.
• The Mint Macaron and Cajun Craze focal circles come from the Layered Circles die set. I used the largest circle and the largest scallop dies.
• Don’t you just love to use a stitched shape of some kind for the sentiment blocks? That’s what I did with this card as well. After stamping the sentiment in Early Espresso, I used the medium circle from the Stitched Shapes die set. Then, I put dimensionals under the sentiment circle. These are the only dimensionals I used on the card.
• I really wanted to use the coordinating punch set for something on this card. One of the best things about this suite is that the punches will punch out the same sized shapes from the DSP. So easy to create a card this way! I punched an acorn, a Cajun Craze maple leaf, and a Mint Macaron leaf and arranged them together. All three shapes are adhered together using the multipurpose liquid adhesive.

Small Wins

• I feel like I should celebrate the mini-bow. As some of you already know, I am bow-challenged. I really struggle with them. They are not fun to create so much of the time, which is why I use square knots often. However, I created this bow using the gilded ribbon from the suite using the bunny ears method. The ribbon is a bit stiff, so I did manipulate it a bit to soften it up, even just a little bit. Bunny ears – who knew? I need 10 more of these bows for some swap cards I am creating as well. It took me some time because of the ribbon’s stiff nature, but I made them all! YEAH ,me!
• I used a glue dot to adhere the bow to the Mint Macaron circle, per my daughter’s suggestion.
• Since I now had two elements on the circle, I needed one more to balance it out. I used a small gilded gem and created a triangle with an element at each corner.
• As I said, the sentiment is adhered with dimensionals.
• For the inside of the card, I trimmed a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock to my usual 4 inches by 5-1/4 inches.
• I used the sentiment from the Autumn Greetings stamp set. in Early Espresso ink, for the inside of the card.
• Since I like to add some sort of interest to the inside of cards as well, I decided to use the pumpkin and little leaves from the same stamp set.
• Here’s the inside of my card:

Finishing Up

• I used Early Espresso to stamp the cute little pumpkin in the corner.
• Time for the fun coloring. I wanted to have two colors for the leaves; Cajun Craze and Mint Macaron. The red rubber of this cling stamp set would make it a tad more difficult to get everything lined up correctly. Therefore, I used the Cajun Craze marker to color the maple leaves and the Mint Macaron marker to color the two middle leaves. Easy Peasy. I colored and stamped the leaves three times along the bottom. A perfectly straight line of leaves wasn’t my goal because if I missed, it would drive me nuts.
• Again, I used multipurpose liquid adhesive to attach the inside Very Vanilla to the inside of the card base.
• Finally, I trimmed a piece of DSP to 2-1/2 inches by 6 inches for the envelope flap. Then, I fussy cut it down.
• The last thing I did was recreate the inside bottom border on the front bottom of the card.
• With that I’d finished this card/envelope set. The recipient will never know how relatively simply this clean card set came together. They will just see a beautiful card, if I do say so myself.

Back to the InKing Royalty Blog Hop Information

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you’ll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, Jennifer Spiller at Westside Paper Creations. There’s lots of inspiration to be found in this group – and you don’t want to miss it!

Thank you for hopping along with us.  If you get stuck during the Blog Hop, please use this line-up as a guide:

1. Brian King at Stamp with Brian
2. Sheryl Sharp at Sharp Notes by Sheryl
3. Sue Jackson at Just Peachy Stamping
4. Jennifer Spiller at Westside Paper Creations
5. Jackie Beers at Blue Line Stamping
6. Shawn de Oliveira at Shawn Stamps
7. Rachel Brumley at Artistic Designs by Rachel
8. Robbye Hamilton at Miss Hammie’s Crafts
9. Candy Ford at Stamp Candy
10. Lynn Kolcun at Avery’s Owlery
11. Joanne Brown at Stamping with JoJo
12. Sheryl Abernathy at Elegant Sentiments
13. Robin Myren at Songbird Designs by Robin
14. Linda Krueger at The Stamp Coach
15. Pam Morris at Tap Tap Stamp
16. Julie DiMatteo at The Paper Pixie
17. Ann Murray at Murray Stamps Ink

As always, thank you so much for stopping by my blog today. I’d also love to hear what you think, and greatly appreciate every comment.

Have a Peachy Day!

Sue

Colors Used:

Supplies Used:

Have a Look at the August – December Mini-Catalog in the Video Below:

September Paper Pumpkin – order now for this autumn all-inclusive kit:

Do You Want to Place an Order?

Of course you do! Even more so because of the products in the NEW catalog. This NEW catalog is FABULOUS!!  Don’t forget to check out the Christmas Means More stamp set and the Have a Hoot bundle in the August – December mini-catalog!

If you are ordering less than $150.00, please use the host code shown. If you are ordering more than $150.00, please contact me first so you can get your stamping rewards!  I want YOU to get the stamping rewards you earn for your order over $150.00 Any order over $50 will earn a gift from me and an August – December mini-catalog. 

The HOST CODE for August  is F6DZNRCX.

Again, thank you for stopping by my blog today!  I appreciate your time, and enjoy reading, and responding to, comments.