"FREESTYLE FRIDAYS"

It's my turn to share a Freestyle Fridays project, and Julie challenged me with her post last week to create a Fall project.  When I started working on today's project, I very neatly stamped a collage of images from Stampin' Up!'s French Foliage stamp set using Crushed Curry, Always Artichoke, Soft Suede, and Cajun Craze colors.  I sponged the edges with Soft Suede ink and then embossed the wood grain texture into the card stock.  The design didn't show up too well, so I lightly sponged Early Espresso ink onto the embossed texture.  Not surprisingly, those beautifully embossed lines had cut through the Very Vanilla card stock in several places, so I just went ahead and (more heavily) sponged the dark ink all over, which covered the stamped collage and further encouraged more tears in the card stock.  I thought about tossing the big oops, but then I decided to just go ahead and see how many tears I could get from the paper.  I put adhesive on the back of the torn strips, and adhered them to a scrap of card stock and then trimmed it to 4" square.  The sentiment, from A Dozen Thoughts, was punched and adhered embossed layer, and then I added the two Candy Dots brads.  This was the first time I've used the Candy Dots, and I love those things!  The finishing touch was the die-cut leaves, tied together with linen thread.  Although the stamped collage that I began with got covered, I really like how some of the ink colors show through the embossed grain, giving a somewhat mossy look.  Thank you, Julie, for such a fun mission!