It wasn’t long before I was in love with this kit and once again I’m glad I didn’t skip a month. Here’s my first project, a thankful banner (shown on the Paper Pumpkin Facebook Live event on Tuesday).

BANNER BASE

I began the banner by cutting up 8 of the watercolour wash cards from the Gift of Fall Add-on Kit. First I trimmed 5/8″ off the right-hand edge to remove the edge of the watercolouring. Then I cut 2-5/16″ off the front of the card to give me a pretty autumn-coloured ombre strip.

With that done I placed the darker end of the strip into my Tailored Tag Punch just to the bottom of the vertical edge and punched. I repeated this for all 8 pieces.

Next I needed to create a means to hang the pieces from 36″ of Blackberry Bliss twine from the Nature’s Twine pack. Instead of punching holes in the banner pieces I decided to make a long channel for the twine. So at the top of each piece I scored a line across at 1/2″ and 5/8″. Next I folded along the scored lines and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder.

To make attaching the twine easier I placed it onto the banner piece between the two scored lines. Then I folded the top of the banner over before using Tear & Tape along the edge to secure it in place. Doing this meant the banners could be moved along the twine as needed.

BANNER DECORATION

With the banner pieces attached to the twine I could get on with the decoration.

Using the #4 plain-edged die from the Layering Circles (counting from the smallest up) I cut eight circles from Gold Glimmer Paper. Then using the #3 plain-edged die I cut eight pieces from Merry Merlot Card.

Now I was ready to cut the letters using the Hand-Lettered Prose Dies. On my desk I still had the backs of the cards from when I created the banner pieces, and I die-cut my letters from these. Unfortunately they did seem a little boring so I pressed each one onto my VersaMark ink pad. Then I sprinkled the VersaMark with Clear Stampin’ Emboss Powder and tapped off the excess. Finally I melted the remaining powder using my Heat Tool set on 2 (high).

The glossy effect was better, but I wanted it even more obvious. So I pressed the embossed letters back onto the VersaMark pad and repeated the embossing process once more. Now my letters almost looked amazing and I was ready for the finishing touches.

Using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I attached a letter to a Merry Merlot circle. Then I glued each one to a Gold Glimmer circle.

Turning the circles over I added printed vellum pieces and plain die-cut leaf pieces from the Gift of Fall kit to the back securing them in place with more liquid glue. Once that was done I finished off the project by attaching each assembled piece to the banner bases using Stampin’ Dimensionals.

One down, one to go…

GIFT OF FALL CARD

I love the fact that when all the pieces from a Paper Pumpkin kit are gone I still have a stamp set. So my second project for the Gift Of Fall kit was created with that in mind…

This is really a 4-in-one Paper Pumpkin, sneak peek, challenge entry, #simplestamping project.

I began with a card base of Thick Very Vanilla Card. Then I chose a piece from the new Come To Gather 12″ x 12″ Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack.

I cut one 3/4″ piece to go across the front of the card leaving a strip of Very Vanilla showing at the top and bottom. Then I cut another 3/4″ piece to go across the bottom of a layer of Very Vanilla Card to line the card base. Keeping it simple I quickly attached the pieces using liquid glue.

Finally I cut a third piece of DSP to cover the flap of a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope. I attached it with liquid glue then cut it to shape with Paper Snips using the edge of the flap as a guide.

Next I stamped the sentiment from the Gift Of Fall kit onto some Very Vanilla Card using Merry Merlot ink. Then I added that to the card front with liquid glue too.

To complete my card I chose two leaf pieces from the new Brightly Gleaming Foil Elements Pack. These are really shiny copper foil, thinner and shiner than the Copper Foil Sheets in the Annual Catalogue. The pack contains 5 identical sheets and each one has 10 laser-cut elements.

Once I’d glued two of the leaf pieces across the card below my sentiment I was done.

You might remember I used some of the scrap pieces from the Brightly Gleaming Foil elements on an earlier sneak peek project. You can see it in my blog post Beautiful Boughs sneak peek.

CHALLENGE INSPIRATION

Phew, another long post but I hope you think it was worth it. Now you’ve seen my ideas for alternate projects using the Gift of Fall kit, click on the next link in the blog hop to see much more.

PRODUCT LIST

Here’s a list of products I used in addition to what came in the Gift of Fall kit. If you are a Paper Pumpkin subscriber you can still buy the Gift of Fall Refill Kit (this includes everything except the stamp set and ink spot). The Gift of Fall Add-On Bundle used for my banner base is also still in stock as I write. However supplies of both these items are limited so if you want to order them, do it now.

BUNDLE BONUS – The Hand-Lettered Prose Dies can be purchased as part of a bundle with the Praiseworthy Prose Stamp Set. Buying products using a ‘bundle’ item number will save you 10% off the cost of buying the same items individually. So although I didn’t use this stamp set on either of today’s projects I have included a link in case you want to explore this further.