It’s 30 days until Thanksgiving in Canada and Mother Nature’s starting to put out the decorations. Even though it’s unseasonably warm here in Nova Scotia I can still see signs of autumn starting to appear. There’s lots of pumpkins and pumpkin spice treats in the stores, but for me the best part of autumn is the warm colours. So when I found a leafy stencil in the new Abundant Beauty Decorative Masks I couldn’t help myself. Out came the Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Copper Clay and Berry Burst ink pads.

ABUNDANT LEAVES AND MORE

Although they’re called ‘decorative masks’, it might be easier to think of the heavy plastic sheets as stencils. Four of them layer together to create a groups of 3 sunflowers with leaves. I’ve seen lots of projects on social media using these and you may have too. But what I and probably many others missed was the other three sheets in the pack. One is a houndstooth tweed pattern, one is covered in snowflakes, and the third is this leafy one.

For this treat project I began by cutting a 4-1/2″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Soft Sea Foam Card and placed the mask on top. Then using Blending Brushes I randomly added my inks through the stencil onto the card beneath. When I removed the mask there were my autumn coloured leaves.

Next I cut out the card using the main die in the Mini Pocket Envelope Dies set. After folding in the tabs I put a little Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) onto them. Then I simply folded over the other section and pressed it all down firmly with a Bone Folder.

To decorate the pocket I simply wrapped 10″ of Moody Mauve 3/8″ Textured Ribbon around the middle and tied it in a square knot.

With that done I chose the “endlessly grateful” sentiment from the Very Best Occasions Stamp Set and stamped it onto some Thick Very Vanilla Card with Berry Burst ink. Then I cut it out using the scalloped rectangle die from the Mini Pocket Envelopes Dies set and tucked it into the ribbon band.

All I needed now was some treats, and two Merci chocolate sticks or one of the small bars were just the right size. Alternatively a single chocolate stick together with a gift card (perhaps for a favourite coffee shop) works too.

PRODUCT LIST

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES – The Mini Pocket Envelope Dies are part of the Online Exclusives range. This means that they don’t appear in any current catalogue and could be discontinued without warning.