Unfortunately I have the sad occasion to make two sympathy cards this week. I'd been playing around trying to develop this technique, and I think the look of wet November leaves catches some of the nostalgia for summers spent as those who remain behind face their season of sadness. I love fall and am always sad to see it end, even while getting excited for Christmas ahead, so I thought I'd share this one last fall-themed project today.
I liked the look of the leaf piece so much that I almost didn't even put a saying on the front, but in the end went with this understated sentiment from Blessings From Heaven. The spritzed adaptation of the Faux Silk technique a beautiful look, and fairly easy to do. Grab those coffee filters and give it a try! Click here to see the original Faux Silk with Coffee Filters photo tutorial. I used the Gently Falling stamp set's solid images, with More Mustard, Cajun Craze, and Early Espresso inks, to stamp on the tissue paper before doing the technique. After the Faux Silk was all completed, I added some additional steps.
First, I spritzed the whole thing with plain water. This caused the leaves to spot and run, and gives you a lot of blurred edges and different color gradients–greens, blues, almost purples. If your spritz didn't turn out quite like you were hoping, you can go back in with an Aquapainter to add water in more precise areas. But casual and messy is the key here (as with so many of my favorite techniques!) so don't let yourself get too caught up in it.
Then I stamped the coordinating outline images over the leaves in the same color, to retain some of the idea of the form of the leaves, as some of them no longer looked terribly much like themselves. It's not a super precise technique either, due to the wrinkles in the faux silk.
This card will never turn out the same way twice–I love the individual artistry of each "canvas." I hope you'll take a moment to try this technique some time soon, maybe for a masculine birthday card.
