An Autumn Card Freebie

On the CRII member's forum that I belong to, I've been doing a year long challenge that requires the making of a layout, and a card each month. This month the card challenge was to read this passage, close your eyes and try to visualise what you have read and then create a card from that. The skies the limit!!!

"Most of all, Autumn means colored leaves: a spectrum of shades between the green shades of summer and the dull browns of winter. Crimson, fiery red, maroon, ruddy orange, pure orange, yellow orange, soft yellows and bright yellows. Red maples, yellow birch, scarlet sycamores, aspen golds. Mottled leaves of several colours in transition. Each deciduous tree, each bush, strutting its own autumn wardrobe. Naked willows dancing in the wind. In their midst, the smug conifers stand. "Evergreen," they say to us, "ever green."

Ahhh, those bright autumn spells that bring out the most vivid of hues. Days so delightful you can almost taste the colour. And those cold, crisp nights when the air has its own special vintage to entice us back outdoors one last time. A bouquet matched in no other season — aged in Northern realms and blended just right.

This is how I see and have seen Autumn over my half century of life. I hope such joy and beauty, such stability and changeability, surprises and routines, continue through my next fifty. I love a good season, watching it turn, engendering days of joy and days of melancholy. Sorry, must go. Adventure lurks outside my door."

Well, I like autumn (it's a toss up between Spring and autumn as to which season I like better) and I have some photos of some of the trees in our neighbourhood that turn beautiful reds, oranges and yellows during autumn. I decided to make some kaleidoscopes from the pictures, and then thought why not make the whole card from scratch - literally. So I started with these two photos (not necessarily the best photos, especially the left one, but the colours are great!):


I then made a circular and a flower shaped kaleidoscope from the left photo, and a square shaped kaleidoscope from the right hand one. I then made the square one into kaleidoscope paper for the background of the card, then added a solid green inlay to put the flowers onto. I also used the cookie cutter tool to cut some leaf shapes from the square kaleidoscope. I printed a sentiment as well (font is "Just one more Picture'), taking the colour from the flower kaleidoscope. This is what the card ended up looking like when I finished it.



Do you want to make one too? Well you can (for personal use only, not to sell), and here's how.

You can try to right click on this photo, click on 'save target as' and save the print. However it appears that this is not printing out clearly enough, so please email me (email is in the left hand column) and I will send you the file, then print it out on thick white paper, or cardstock. It's scaled to fit an A4 sheet, so it should fit on letter size as well, although you might need to scale it slightly. The finished card will fit in a standard C6 sized envelope. (Sorry, I'm not sure what the US sizes are.)

Besides the print out, you will also need some Kaisercraft (deep yellow)rhinestones , glitter, glue dots, or craft glue, foam/mounting tape and double sided tape.

Step 1.
Cut out all the shapes, the sentiment and the card base. Note that you can make three large flowers and two small flowers from this print. I only used two large, and one small flower on the final card, so you could use the other two for another card, or a layout, or just not make them all. Similarly, I only used seven of the nine leaves. You should end up with this. (Remember you can click on any photos in this post to get a larger view.)


Step 2.
Cut slits about half way to the middle in all the grooves of the flowers. Try to actually cut from the groove, not next to it like I did!

Step 3.
Cut the circular kaleidoscopes into a spiral like this.


Step 4.
Take the end of a pen, paintbrush, etc - I used the end of my scalpel, and starting at the outside, curl the spiral onto the object until you get to the centre circle. (Please excuse the look of my fingernails - they break all the time so are very short just after they break. They're not as beautiful as I see in other people's blogs!)
I used sticky glue dots, but you could use craft glue, and put some adhesive on the centre circle, let the spiral open out a little and press it into the adhesive. I added a rhinestone to the centre, and on the larger circles, some gold coloured glitter as well to cover all the exposed glue. (See next picture to see the final result.)(Note, there are lots of people who have included this technique on their blogs, but the most recent post I saw about it was on DeAnna's blog here)

Step 5.
Curl under the petals on the flower around a pen or similar object. You can dampen the paper slightly (on the back if you have an ink jet printer) to make it a bit easier, but then you have to wait for it to dry completely before you can continue. I then put the flower in the palm of my hand pressing my finger in a circular motion into the centre of the flower to make the petals rise up a bit. (Does that make sense? - I don't know how else to describe it!) You should now have two parts of the flower - the outer petals, and the inner 'rose' section.


Step 6.
Put a glue dot in the middle of each flower and stick the 'rose' centre on top. join the bottom flaps of the leaves together so that they curl up a bit, and put some double sided tape across the back to keep them this way.


Step 7.
Put the card together. Either follow the layout I used, or use your own. I put the sentiment on with foam mounting tape, and stuck the leaves down, then put the flowers overlapping them. Here's a side on close up view.


I'd love to know if you download this card. Please leave me a comment and link me to a photo of your finished product!

Till next time, happy days!

Francine