For The Love Of Leaves - A New Design

Hello friends.  I have a 5 year blog-aversary coming up on September 30th, and one of my dear friends Loll Thompson asked me if I'd be interested in a blog re-design in celebration of 5 years of blogging.  Those of you  who have followed me for any length of time know that while I love making cards, computers and anything technology related are just not my thing!  Because there are only so many choices that blogger offers for blog design, I have been limited to what they had, so the offer of a new design that is totally what I want was FABULOUS news!!  I have always loved LEAVES and have many, many leaf designs in my home, so I mentioned that to Loll and the fact that I love earth tones, and she did all the rest and I couldn't be more pleased!  Thank you, thank you Loll...you really are the best!!

To celebrate my new design, I made three new cards featuring...yep, you guessed it...leaves!!

For this card I dry embossed a couple Gina Marie Designs leaf dies with a rubber mat, so that I would get the impression of the leaf, but not have it cut.  I also lightly tapped my Versamark pad over the top of the leaf dies before dry embossing them, and then used copper embossing powder that only picked up on the outline details.  Next I masked off the edges of my cardstock and then did some acetate smooshing with Fired Brick, Orange Marmalade, & Peeled Paint Distress Inks.  My sentiment is from PTI's Keep It Simple: Thank You.

I had hoped to capture the shine of the copper embossing in this close up, but no such luck!  I do however love the way the colors of my smooshing came out!!

This next card shows off much better in person!  I double embossed the leaf die cut (Gina Marie Designs) in copper and the double embossing really gives it a solid and lovely look!  Behind the open side of the leaf I blended the same colors as the first card, but in DOX inks...a much deeper and solid color!  I also did some water splattering and then sprayed the colored piece quite liberally with Sheer Shimmer Sparkle Spritz...in real life this whole card just shines and sparkles!!

For my last card I wanted to do something that reflected my new design, so I gathered a couple leaf sets (PTI's Leaf Prints and Leave It Be) and had fun playing around with colors and the different leaves.  After fussy cutting them all out, I die cut a dotted frame from PTI's Mix & Mat: Flourish and then arranged my leaves along the bottom and up the left side.  My sentiment is from the same PTI set (Keep It Simple: Thank You) that I used on my 1st and 2nd cards.  My card base is a piece of Soft Suede cs.

I hope you've enjoyed my little tribute to LEAVES and again, a BIG THANK YOU to Loll for all the work you did (even though you said it was fun and NOT work!!).  I am totally in LOVE with my new blog and just can't believe I am lucky enough to have a blog this cool looking!

Thanks for stopping by today ... I love it when you do!