Experimental technique

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are having a Marvelous Monday! It is the beginning of a new week, or was yesterday the beginning? I never know for sure, but my calendar says Sunday is the first day of the week. Oh, well, either way, I hope it is going well for you!

Today I bring you an experiment I first saw on Splitcoast Stampers. It was called Duoprinting with Chlorophyll and I believe the author was Lydia Fiedler. Basically you imprint a leaf onto your cardstock and use that instead of a stamp. To get the details on how to do it, go here.

In a nutshell, I went to my yard and in about 15 minutes I had gathered a dozen or so leaves. This is really experimental as some leaves are rather dry, while others are too ‘juicy’. An example was a hosta leaf that was too dry to make much of an imprint, but a ferny leaf from a weed (Queen Anne’s Lace?) was VERY juicy. You just have to play around with them.

Once you have your leaves gathered, you will need your Big Shot/Kick/Vagabond/ whatever; copy paper; card stock or watercolor paper. Yep, that’s it.

Fold the copy paper in half and lay it open (for now) on your cut plate. Your sandwich will be pretty much the same as for when you are embossing. Depending on the thickness of your leaf/leaves, you might need a shim of another sheet of paper or card stock. As stated before, this is experimental.

Lay a piece of card stock on the open copy paper, arrange your leaf, add another piece of card stock and close the copy paper. Add your other plate and run it through your Big Shot. You will have 2 monochromatic green prints, usually a ‘positive’ and a ‘negative’. You can use either or both, depending on your personal preference. Discard the smashed leaf. If some of the leaf stick to the paper it will flake off when it is dry.

Let this image dry before using it on a card.

Here is my first card using this technique. Once you have your imprints, the rest is super easy peasy and really quick to make. DISCLAIMER: This may not be for everyone as it is very natural and organic looking. If your taste runs to the ‘perfect’ then maybe you better stick to stamps. Personally, I like the look for something different, but wouldn’t use it all the time. And, I think next time I will try one using torn edges. You could even just tear out the leaf imprint and use that on a mat.

I started with a Crumb Cake card base with an Old Olive mat liquid glued to it.

YES!!! IT IS LEMON LIME TWIST! I know, I know, I claim to not like this color. And, I don’t. In fact I almost hate it. However, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, and in this case, it goes perfectly with the chlorophyll imprint of the leaf. So there! I know when to not cut off my nose to spite my face!

I stamped the sentiment from One Big Meaning in Old Olive onto the watercolor paper with the leaf impression. This was adhered to the Lemon Lime Twist mat with Fast Fuse as the paper had curled a bit in the drying. I was not sure the liquid glue would be strong enough to hold it flat.

I used Stampin’ Dimensionals to adhere this to the Old Olive mat and the front was done.

Inside, I cut a piece of Old Olive (I had already had enough of that other so-called green) for a mat.

Using a ferny leaf from Butterfly Basics,  which I thought was similar to my impression, I stamped off once, again in Old Olive, then stamped the image on a piece of Very Vanilla card stock. It looked a bit plain, so I used a scrap of O So Succulent (I think) DSP to add a strip to the bottom of the liner and the inside was done. For this kind of thank you card I usually hand write a message, so I didn’t want a sentiment.

There! I told you it was easy peasy.

On the Medium Very Vanilla envelope, I stamped the same ferny leaf full strength on the front and used a larger scrap of the DSP on the flap.

This is a really easy, fun project you could do with kids. I hope you enjoy.

If you are in need of supplies and do not have a demonstrator, just click on the ‘shop online’ button at right.

Thanks for stopping by.

Card cuts: Crumb Cake: card base 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″ scored at 4-1/4″;  Old Olive: first mat 4-1/8″ x 5-3/8″, inside mat 4″ x 5-1/4″;  Very Vanilla:  inside liner 3-5/8″ x 4-7/8″; Lemon Lime Twist: 4″ x 5-14″

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