Clean and Simple shaker card for autumn or fall

Hi everyone, it's Esther here with a Clean and Simple shaker card for autumn or fall. 

Don't you love this time of year? I'm lucky to live right next to woodland. When I get out to walk the dogs there on an afternoon, the sky is a wonderful clear pale blue, the air is sharp, and the leaves crunch under our feet. Perfect!

I wanted to capture these sensations in a card, and thought I'd also show some of the steps for anyone who might find that helpful. 

Here's my card:

I used four products for this card. The front panel is cut using the Concord & 9th Grateful Leaf Dies. The sentiment is from the matching Concord & 9th Lace Leaf set. I've been so impressed with this stamp set - did you see my Christmas card that used the small leaf? This is a really versatile set for every season and I'm going to get a lot of use out of it. 

The inner layer of the card uses Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens for the background, the grey shading on the birch trees and the colouring on the leaves. These pens are another absolute win. I got the 24 pen set to test them out, but the bigger 60 pen set quickly went onto the wishlist! A massive bonus is that these pens don't bleed through decent quality card stock, so you can colour images on one layer cards with no leakage through to the other side. (Obviously don't use water with them unless it's watercolour card stock!)

Finally, those beautiful birch trees are from Mama Elephant Birch Trees Creative Cuts.

I used leaves as the shaker element of this card instead of sequins so that they would have the right matt texture and would "stick" in the tree branches when the card is shaken. I'm thrilled with how that worked; it produced exactly the effect I was aiming for.

Just get your Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens and shade from dark to light on the front and back of a scrap piece of card using each lighter colour to blend over the darker colour next to it. From the left, I used 062 Dark Brown, 060 Brown, 070 Orange, 052 Bright Yellow and 050 Yellow. Then die cut multiple leaves using the various sizes of leaf die in your Mama Elephant Birch Trees Creative Cuts.

To get the loose watercolour background, take your Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens and scribble them onto an acrylic stamping block, slightly overlapping each colour with the previous, then mist lightly with water so the colour beads up. I find I get a softer edge if I then take a sheet of kitchen paper and lightly tap excess ink away from the edges of the block. Then press your base panel over the acrylic block, lift away and either dry with a heat tool or leave to dry naturally. I repeated this step twice to get the coverage I wanted. From the top, I used 092 Blue Gray, 031 Cobalt Blue, 043 Olive Green, 072 Beige and 062 Dark Brown.

Finally, the sentiment! I love that long sentiment strip from the Concord & 9th Lace Leaf set with its descriptive autumn/fall phrases. Here's how to shape it perfectly for the edge of the negative leaf shape on the front panel if you're using a MISTI.

Place your die cut front card panel into the MISTI, use the magnets to hold it down and close the lid. Use a dark colour of Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pen to draw on the top of the lid along the right hand edge of the leaf. Remember, Zigs are waterbased pens so it will wipe right off when you're done with a baby wipe or damp tissue. 

Then open the lid and press the sentiment into place on the underneath of the lid, a short distance from the line you've drawn. 

Keep closing the lid to check you have the placement right on the card panel in real life. When you're happy with the placement, ink up the sentiment and stamp it onto the card panel. You can then clean up the stamp as usual and wipe the Zig off your lid.

Final tip - always give the acetate on your shaker cards a quick wipe with an anti-static pad before adhering everything together. That way, your shaker filling won't stick to the acetate but will instead move freely.

Thanks for stopping by!