Hi, friends! Emily here with you today for a sort of non-traditional Thanksgiving card… Truth be told, I’m not one for making autumnal cards. I looooove fall and all of the wonderful things that come along with it, but somehow that has never translated into my cardmaking or crafting in general… I think it has something to do with the fact that I hate orange. With a passion. Which is really funny because I’m married to a ginger. (hahahaha) Anyway, I wanted to challenge myself to make a “cool” autumnal card with the pretty Autumn Foliage stamp set that I purchased but have never used… insert blushing emoji… so I pulled out my stamps, a bunch of pretty inks, and just got to stamping.

I started by stamping the purple and yellow leaves. I wanted to keep the undertones cool, so I had to create some custom color combinations, and luckily The Ton stocks enough inks that I could create the exact look I was going for. The purple leaves were stamped with Cosmopolitan Pink, Pink Derby, and Grape Crush inks. The yellow leaves were stamped with the Citrine Collection. I fussy cut all of them and arranged them in a little bouquet, but decided some flowers were needed (like that was a big surprise, eh?), so I pulled out my Fresh Cut Dahlia set. The dahlias remind me of mums a little, so I thought they’d be perfect to create a little autumnal bouquet with the leaves. I stamped them in Peach Blossom, Cosmopolitan Pink, and Pink Derby inks, then fussy cut them.

The next step was the background. A nice buffalo check just screams “autumn” to me, and with a little creative stamping, I was about to use the Haute Stripes stamp set to create a nice, thick buffalo check. In keeping with my challenge of keeping things “cool,” I decided to stamp it in True Navy. With my background stamps, I like to start by placing my cling stamp in my MISTI, then using a piece of scratch paper to stamp it once. I do this extra step to ensure that I get perfect placement. I then use a piece of washi tape to adhere my “good” card stock down, so that I can restamp if I need to. For my buffalo check, I stamped it once on the scratch paper, then lined up my good paper on the scratch paper, ensuring that the lines were straight, stamped it, then flipped it 90* and stamped it again, getting a nice, rustic little checked pattern. I die cut my buffalo check with a Stitched Rectangle die, popped it up with some dimensional adhesive on my card base, then added my cool autumnal arrangement. The last step was to emboss the sentiment, also from Autumn Foliage, on a flagged strip of card stock using Platinum embossing powder.

Well, what do you think? It reminds me of a Martha Stewart Thanksgiving tablescape…. checked table cloth, chic floral arrangement, metallics…. I hope you enjoyed this step into my warm color-challenged brain! Have a great week, friends!