Turning leaves into trees

When I saw the new Stampin' Up! 2015 holiday catalog, I fell in love with the Lighthearted Leaves stamp set -- it's a different style than my other fall-and leaf-themed sets, and it has a few great sentiments. I also noticed that a few of the leaf images also could work as trees. Hmm. So that was the first thing I wanted to try with this new set.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!):
Stamps: Lighthearted Leaves
Paper: Thick Whisper White card stock, Into the Woods Designer Series Paper (DSP)
Ink: Soft Suede pad; Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Mossy Meadow, Rich Razzleberry, Tangelo Twist markers
Accessories: Gold metallic thread, gold sequins, Fine-Tip Glue Pen, bone folder, Dimensionals

I love the way this card turned out. And don't those images make great trees?

For my focal layer, I started by stamping a tree on either side of a piece of white card stock. Then I stamped the sentiment twice: once next to the right-hand tree and then again on a self-stick note. I cut out the sentiment on the self-stick note (leaving a small border around the words) to make a mask. I placed the mask over the words stamped on the card stock and then stamped the third tree.

Using the colors of the Into the Woods DSP as my palette, I colored the leaves/trees with markers. (Because I stamped the images using Soft Suede, rather than a waterproof ink, I was careful not to color over the stamped lines too much.) I added three gold sequins around the stamped images and distressed the edges of the card stock with a bone folder. For a little more shine I adhered gold metallic thread to the back of the focal layer and then used Dimensionals to attach the layer to a white card base, which I had already layered with a piece of woodgrain-patterned paper.

Now I'm ready for the crisp air and colorful leaves of autumn. Thanks for stopping by!