Vibrant Rainbow Palette Using Simon Hurley’s Leaf Prints

Hello crafters! Joan Bardee here and I’m happy to be back on the Spellbinders blog sharing 3 bright, colorful cards using Simon Hurley’s Leaf Prints stamps and dies. Leaf Prints is a set of beautiful solid (no coloring!!) red rubber stamps of leaves and there is a coordinating set of dies available. Leaf Prints is perfect for fall cards, and normally I would go with a typical autumn color palette, but I used a vibrant rainbow palette instead and I love how they came out. Although, when you get to the 3^rd card, you’ll see I’m second-guessing myself. Let me know what you think.

RAINBOW BOUQUET

This card packs a lot of color but is simple to make:

• Stamp all the leaves (some more than once) in Leaf Prints in a variety of rich colors. There’s a little bit of distressing built into the stamps, and I love the little white dots it create.
• Die-cut all the leaves.
• Trim white cardstock to 4 ¼” x 5 ¼”.
• Arrange leaves as shown on white cardstock and adhere with glue.
• Stamp sentiment from Parcel & Post Sentiments Clear Stamp set in black ink on white cardstock.
• Die cut sentiment with a circle die.
• Adhere sentiment with foam tape and add a few pieces of foam tape under a few of the leaves.
• Adhere a few Crystal Mix Essential gems to the sentiment.
• Loosely cover up the leaves with a piece of typing paper and splatter some black ink on the card (should have done that earlier!).
• Adhere panel to a card made from Alabaster Color Essentials cardstock (this is the perfect cream color).
• Declare yourself a genius and decide that cardmaking really is the best hobby.

Tip: Rainbow palettes work best if all the colors are the same intensity or saturation. Mixing vibrant and pale together in a rainbow is a little jarring.

Tip: These stamps are only needed one inking to get perfect results with foam ink pads.

Simple Stenciled Abstract Rainbow

Love abstract designs and this was a snap to make. Notice the slightly wavy oval shape created by making a stencil with a leaf die – just a little different.

• Cut a piece of Clear Acetate (could use vellum) and die cut one of the Leaf Prints dies to create a stencil.
• Trim white cardstock to 5” x 3 ¾”.
• Find the mid-point of the cardstock and stencil the oval shape in rainbow order.
• To make alignment easier, stencil the top and bottom leaves first, then the ones on the side and then fill in the others. (Arrange ink pads in a circle in rainbow order and it will help to stencil in the correct ink in the correct place.)
• Hot foil a sentiment from Simon Hurley’s Must Have Sentiments with Opaque White foil onto Onyx Color Essentials cardstock and die cut.
• Adhere the sentiment with foam tape.
• Adhere the panel with foam tape (I’m addicted to dimension!) to an Alabaster cardstock base.
• Add color-coordinating gems from my stash.
• Husband loves it. Apparently, I need validation.

Tip: When making a stencil, use a larger piece of acetate (or vellum) than you think you might need so that there is a large border around the stencil. It makes it easier to avoid getting ink outside the stencil area.

Experimental Rainbow Background

Decided to make a rainbow background by repeatedly stamping one leaf stamp around the cardstock, turning it in different directions. My plan was to die cut the background with the coordinating Leaf Prints die and create interesting leaves and then figure out what to do with them. However, I decided I loved the background and didn’t cut it up. To finish the card:

• Die cut a vellum leaf with the coordinating Leaf Prints die.
• Hot foil another sentiment from Simon Hurley’s Must Have Sentiments with Opaque White foil onto Onyx Color Essentials cardstock and die cut.
• Adhere as shown and attach to a white A2 card.
• Add a few clear dots.
• Second, guess the whole thing. Maybe not a genius after all. Debate whether to include it in this blog and decide to be bold and go with it.

Tip: There are a lot of black cardstocks out there and I’ve tried many of them. Spellbinders Onyx is the blackest black I’ve found and it hot foils beautifully. Cardmaking is so fun, and I hope you can see the fun I had making these cards. Thanks so much for checking out this post and thank you to Spellbinders.

Other Supplies

Paper trimmer; inks, embellishments.