Monday 1 October 2012

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey


The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Leaftastic".  I just love Autumn, the changing colours of the leaves, the hint of a chill in the moist air and the start of "comfort food" season :)  I ordered a set of Tim's Autumn Blueprint stamps as soon as I saw them, I'm a sucker for anything leafy.  Most of my immediate family have birthdays in September (me included) so I thought I'd make some season-appropriate giftwrap.

My starting point was a roll of cheap kraft wrapping paper, which can be had for a handful of beans from your local Swedish furniture superstore (c'mon, don't play dumb, you know you know the one I'm talking about!).  The kraft colour is a perfect base for some autumnal goodness and it lends itself well to the hand-drawn feel of the stamped images.

The paper has a shiny side and a matt side, I chose to work on the matt side as I thought it would take the stamping and colouring better.  There are 4 stamps in the set, so I used large acrylic blocks with 2 stamps side-by-side on each, to make the stamping faster and easier to line up.  The images were stamped with black Archival ink, which is waterproof, useful as I went on to "paint" the leaves.

I dabbed various autumn-hued distress ink pads onto my non-stick craft mat and then used a water brush to pick up the colour and paint the leaves, blending colours together as I painted, to give that variagated autumn leaf colouring.

The co-ordinating gift card was stamped on Kraft Resist cardstock, painted in the same way and then I blended Aged Mahogany ink around the edges to complete the look.  I'm really pleased with the end result and the recipient absolutely loved their one-of-a-kind gift wrap!

 Supplies I used included:


Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!


12 comments :

misteejay said...

What a beautifully presented gift - if it was mine I would make sure I saved that wonderful paper.

Toni xx

Candy C said...

Dan...I really love your kraft wrapping paper! What a great and practical idea! I've not gotten any of the blueprint stamps but you have really used them for such a great purpose and look! <3 Candy

Craft Addicts - Tracy Evans said...

Fabulous Dan, I love your gift wrap. I am a big lover of brown paper and leaves so this is perfect, great pop f ploys against the paper too. Enjoy your week. Tracy x

Andrea said...

Dan I to love the colours of Autumn and your wrapping is wonderful, I have a lovely photo of my neighbours tree with all the autumn colours x

email: Steph@SimonSaysStamp.com said...

Stunning wrapping paper & matching tag! What a clever idea and perfectly created :)

*mwah*
Steph
Simon Says Stamp!

Hels Sheridan said...

cool idea... love my local swedish furniture store, they have wonderful balls of meat lol

Barbara said...

What a fantastic idea and so well done! Love the look, and so practical!

Sandra said...

What a great idea to make your own gift wrapping paper. It looks so good! The receiver of this gift will be very happy! Hugs, Sandra

Izzy said...

Amazing gift wrap, and such a neat idea, you are very talented indeed! :)

Tracey said...

FABulous idea Dan!! Wonderful colours that look awesome on the kraft paper!

Words and Pictures said...

I'm getting more and more tempted by the leaf blueprints - they look absolutely brilliant here! Wonderful colours, and fabulous wrapping paper...
Alison x

Weezy said...

Your wrapping paper is just fab! I love the look of brown Kraft paper and you have shown how it can lend itself to one of many many different looks depending of how you craft with it. The colours are just so so lovely!

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