Change

Falling leaves tinged with greens and browns on a crackly background speak to me to the heat of summer and the passage of summer into the hint of Autumn to come. This is also a symbol of change. Accepting change is letting go of fear and seeing what the future will bring.

This distressed card features stamps by Impression Obsession and Distress products, crackle paint, stain, and ink.

Supplies

LinkDeli.com

These are not affiliate links just the products I use and where you can find them, too (if they're not retired).

Putting It Together

I recently picked up some long retired Distress crackle paint from a garage sale hosted by a local scrapbooking store. In one of the bottles, the Antique Linen, the paint had become thick and goopy, almost paste. Long ago I used to do a bit of mixing my own pigments and still have an ancient bottle of gum arabic. It's about two decades old! It's darkened over the years but I thought I might be able to mix it with some of the pasty paint..

I used a wooden stir stick to mix the pain with the gum arabic on parchment paper and then painted a thick water colour panel cut to 4" x 5 1/4", 1/4" smaller than a standard A2 card.

 After painting and drying the panel, I stamped the crakly Craquelure Cover-A-Card in Memento Potter's Clay and Rich Cocoa. The Memento ink dries waterproof so you can work in wet and it won't budge.

I added thin Distress stain, Bundled Sage, to weather the panel even more.

I rubbed the edges with Vintage Photo Distress stain...

and feathered the stain into the panel.

I used the distressing tool to rough up the edges.

I later, not pictured here, added more Vintage Photo stain to the roughed edges.

The Maple set had a 4 stage leaf. I stamped it in greens and in greens mixed with browns to make four leafs.

I fussy cut the leaves.

After the first leaf, I dry fit it on the background and it fit well.

I used Distress Marker to add colour to the edges of the leaves.

I used the blending tool to colour the backs in case an edge curled up.

I used the bone folder to score veins into the leaves and give them a little more dimension.

I stamped the sentiment and die cut it as a tag before using using Distress ink to.. umm.. distress it. I dry with them all together and found that four leaves was too many.

With the edges curling up on the panel, I decided to add a mat of the same size, so only a hint of it is seen from an angle, more for the feel of the colour than to splash it on.

I did, though, add the same blue as cords for the tag. I adhered the tag and leaves with pop-up glue dots so they could be minimally adhered. I added the background panel to the mat with foam mounting tape leaving wide side margins of no adhesive. The blue panel I attached with Scor-tape. I used Stampin' Up Natural White as the card base because of its similarity to hand made paper with flecks in the off-white.

I added the fourth leaf on the inside.

The Distress and Impression Obsession supplies used.

Challenges

Impression Obsession: It's Getting Hot In Here

Simon Say Stamp Monday: Distress It

Try It On Tuesday: Tag

Crafty Gals Corner: Do It For the Dudes

Through the Craftroom Door: Anything Goes