Autumn Tree Colored Pencil on Kraft

Hi stampers! It is a new week and I have a tutorial focusing on frames and on coloring on kraft cardstock to share with you. It is also my first autumn project of the year. The leaves are staring to turn and the air has the crispness of autumn to it.

We are celebrating STAMPtember® this whole month at Simon Says Stamp. At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Frame It theme. Fun and lots of options! Don't miss the project by our September guest designer Tracy Ware. You can see her beautiful creations at her Instagram account here.

Frames can be many things and their main function is to create a space for something. I used both die cut and stamped frames here. You don't have to use a product designed as a frame, but there are many ways in which frames can be created. A circle stamp can become a frame and you can use smaller objects to frame others - such as how the leaves acts as a framing device here. Washi tape is also great for frames, even though I only used tape for a border here. Or you could stitch a frame around a design.

I started out with a left-over background from the Blueberry art journal page that I posted last week. After having inked through the Simon Says Stamp Bubble Wrap stencil for that page, I didn't want to waste the ink that was left on the stencil. Mist the stencil lightly with water and use it to stamp an impression on a piece of watercolor paper. I repeated it twice, getting the backgrounds you see here. 

I used the two circle stamps from the SSS Circle Sentiments Christmas set together with dark brown ink to stamp circles on the background. 

Two of the circles frame butterflies stamped with the Thoughtful Flowers set. I also added dots with the dot stamp from the Hello Sunshine set and Forget-me-not ink. The sentiment comes from Beautiful Butterflies.

Color the butterflies with colored pencils and then splatter more color on the background with Scribble Sticks. Dip the stick in water and flick a paint brush against it.

Die cut the Poppy Stamps Soaring Tree Frame from kraft cardstock.

Color the tree with colored pencils, adding shadows and shading for dimension. I used Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils. 

Die cut Tender Leaves from kraft cardstock. I have used these sweet leaves from the SSS STAMPtember release a lot lately.

Color the leaves with colored pencils.

I also stamped trails for the butterflies with Thoughtful Flowers. I like how vibrant the colored pencil looks against the background, while you can still see the pattern of the dots.

Stamping on watercolor paper with an ink pad that needs reinking gives the look of pencil marks. This was an accident since I had forgotten to reink that ink pad.

I die cut the Soaring Tree Frame from gold paper too and layered it to create a thin border. 

The You title was die cut from gold and cream paper. I planned for the stamped 'you' not to show, but hadn't removed the ink properly enough. I decided that it was fine any way. 

Some words from Thoughtful Flowers were repeat stamped on the background.

The negative bubbles with the shades of blue makes for a very useful background.

I also die cut an SSS Grassy Edges border from gold paper and added a piece of Label Tape.

I really like the look of colored pencils on kraft paper and it works great for autumn projects.

The page was mounted on one of the burlap pages in my Dina Wakley Media Journal, adding to the textured feel of autumn.

I hope you will join us this week in our Frame It challenge. You have a chance to win a $25 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until next Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you so much for stopping by here today! 

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

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