Backgrounds

I'd been searching for just the right background for this hollyhock (one of my newest favorite stamps from Serendipity Stamps)  I stamped with watercolor pencils, and today I decided to emboss a pink piece of cardstock and lightly distress it with sandpaper, sponge those edges with brown chalk ink and mount it all on a square celery card. 

I know this isn't an autumn card, but it's hard to think autumn when it's still so sunny and hot here!  Looks like the forecast might be changing pretty soon, though.  Hooray!

I'm entering this in the Serendipity Stamps Challenge #47, which is all about creating your own background.  

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Hero Arts Makeover Challenge

It's still summertime here in the midwest, but my heart, as always, longs for fall.  I want to feel the cool days and crisp nights, see the trees slowly turning colors on the hillsides, smell woodsmoke in the air and hear the crunch of acorns underfoot.  

My card-thoughts turn to autumn, too.  

I wanted to enter the Hero Arts Makeover Challenge, which asks us to makeover one of our own old card designs.  What better to makeover than an old autumn card of mine?  

Looking back through photos of my older cards--some of them my first attempts--I often cringe.  But often I also come across ideas that I still like.  This leaf card is one of those. 

I decided to play with this idea today, using the same leaf from my Hero Arts Poetic Prints set, but trying a one-layer card.

First, I made this one, sponging around a circle mask and adding the outer leaves from Stampin' Up.  Everything is inked with Kaleidacolor Autumn Leaves rainbow inkpad from Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko

For a second card, I masked and sponged two background squares beneath the same leaf, using Yellow Ochre and Chestnut Roan.  I added the sentiment from Hero Arts Cherish Yesterday set.  At first, I was going to place it as I did in the original card, but I decided to go all around the edges.  

What do you think?