Monday, August 27, 2018

My Cards and Tags: Fall Trees using Dina Wakley's For the Love of Circles Stamp Set

Fall/Autumn is this week's theme over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog.  I was anxious to try Dina Wakley's new "For the Love of Circles" stamp set, so I used the circles to create abstract-ish Fall trees on my tag trio.

I was pretty proud of myself on this project because I finally (and I do mean FINALLY) used a Gel Plate for the first time.  I held off joining the Gel Plate revolution for a very long time.  Then I bought a Gel Plate (ahem- about a year ago) and it stayed boxed up until this week.  I don't have a good explanation for my hesitation.  Intimidation?  Laziness because it seemed messy to have to deal with?  Fear of failure?  I can't say precisely, but I'm so glad I got over my subconscious block with it and gave it a try.  It was a fantastic product to work with that was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Here's a picture of the background I created with the Gel Plate, which I made with no clue of what I was doing.  I just drizzled some paint on the plate, rolled it around with my brayer and then stuck Carabelle Studio's "Ronds" texture plate on there a few times.  I stuck my white paper on top of the Gel Plate and here's what I got when I peeled it off.

I cut my background into tag shapes and stamped some of Dina's circles on a different piece of paper using Memento Luxe ink (it always works well with red rubber stamps).  Then I cut the circles out.  I glued some text scraps onto the circles.

I added more acrylic paint to my tags and to my circles and glued my circles on top of my tag backgrounds.  I also stamped on some black circle shapes from a stamp by Paper Artsy.  I colored the little circle/square shapes in with a black Sharpie.

The colors were looking a little crazy (even for me), so I toned everything down with some white paint.  Then I added a big bold word to each tag from a Reverse Confetti die.  I also did some stamping by the tree trunk (the names of the months and a little "I believe in gratitude phrase) from some Paper Artsy stamp sets.  I added some Dina scribbly script to the bottom of the tags.  To make my circles look like trees, I cut some trunks and branches out of strips of black cardstock and glued them on.

I added some browns (Umber paint) to the edges of the tags to give them a more Autumn type of vibe.

To make the tops of the trees stand out and to give the edges of my tags a little more definition, I outlined these areas with an embossing pen and heat-embossed the black on there.  LOVE the freedom of embossing pens!

I do love this time of the year and look forward to cooler temperatures, boot-wearing, and family fun (with pie).

Here are the supplies I used, which you can find at Simon Says Stamp:


I'm looking forward to seeing how YOU are inspired by Fall/Autumn this week!  Upload your creations to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog for your chance to win a $50 voucher to the Simon Says Stamp store!