Gelli Plate Autumn Leaves

Hi all.  I am back with probably my last autumnal card for this year and is a card I made recently for a friend's birthday.  I saw Barbara Gray of Claritystamp do something similar on her blog so thought I would give it a go.  It uses acrylic paint and real leaves with the gelli plate to make a background and a set of different leaf stamps from Hobby Art called Falling Leaves.  The two dies placed on top for the sentiment are from a Spellbinder set called Floral Ovals.

I began by using some fallen leaves I collected in a few different shapes, and also a couple of green ones from a shrub.  I got out some cheap acrylic paints I bought to experiment on the gelli plate with a while ago, in black, white, red, yellow, blue and buttermilk, and by mixing the colours together I managed to make some reasonable autumnal colours.  I took each colour in turn and using a brayer applied the colour to several of the leaves and placed them face down on the 6" x 6" gelli plate and then after brayering the back lifted the leaves off.  I pretty much covered the plate bit by bit and where the leaves overlapped I left each one to dry before adding the next coloured one to keep the colours nice and clean.  When everything was dry I applied a layer of buttermilk paint all over and using a piece of good quality paper I lifted the print by laying it on top of the plate and rubbing over the back a few times to get maximum coverage.  The idea is that the last coat of paint reactivates the underneath coats so that when you rub over it nearly all the paint lifts off on to the paper.  As you can see a lot of the leaf prints are not terribly clear and there are a few bits of the white paper which show through but I liked the overall look of the piece.

I finished the background by adding some more leaves using two of the small silhouette leaf stamps from the Hobbyart set with some Brilliance Galaxy Gold and Olive Pearlescent Pigment Inks.  The olive ones show up better than the gold ones.

I found some snippets of white card and stamped one of the larger leaf shapes from the Hobby Art set, using Versamark Ink and WOW Copper Embossing Powder, which I heat set, and then I coloured using Adirondack Inks and a water brush and blended the colours together.  I used slightly different colours on the two leaves to make them look more random, and the colours were Sunshine Yellow, Cranberry, Mowed Lawn and Espresso, and also a bit of Walnut Stain Distress Ink, and when dry I fussy cut them.

I finished by using some snippets of Kraft card to die cut the two Floral Ovals and I stamped the sentiment with the Versamark and WOW Copper EP.  I then found another snippet of Kraft card to back the gelli plate print and mounted this on to the white base card and then adhered the sentiment plate, and finally stuck the leaves with some Pinflair Glue Gel.

Before I go I would like to introduce a lovely new follower called Tina Z whose blog you will find here and I'm sure she would love you to drop by and take a look.

Now I don't have any more birthday cards to make for a while I really must get on with my Christmas cards which I am late doing as usual!  Thank you for visiting my blog today.

Pat   x

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 204 where we use our leftover pieces/snippets of card, paper etc.
Mixed Media World - Anything Goes.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.