Fused Fall Papers

It's time for a few fall cards....and I'm pretty happy with this little experiment.  I haven't worked in my studio for days and days....and it felt good to spend some time creating again. 

I always welcome the rich and earthy fall colors this time of year.

I was curious how some of my printed gel plate papers would work on paper backed fusible webbing. I tore random shapes of fall colors and arranged them on a large piece of fusible with the paper side down and fusible side UP. Then I ironed them....a few at a time...which also glued them down.

I wasn't so sure about it at this point...but I had a little faith and just kept going. 

It was VERY important to use a piece of the used transfer paper from previous projects as a pressing cloth to protect my iron. Remember...the fusible side was facing UP so any edges and pieces of the exposed fusible would immediately stick to the iron.

I didn't like the stark white edges on some of the torn pieces so I blotted them out with golden yellow paint on a VERY USED sponge.

Next I went over the whole thing with matte medium making sure to brush it under the overlapping parts to glue them down.  I could have just collaged the whole thing with medium to begin with....but I wanted to see if the fusible would help keep the papers from wrinkling....and it did.

OK....it still didn't look so good....but this was just a base.  At first I thought I would layer other elements on the whole piece....but I wanted to try a variety of different things so I cut off a chunk for one card and added another layer.

I cut out some of the fern shapes from this lovely metallic paper....and glued them down with medium.

Now this is where the idea of making the collage on the fusible came in handy.  All I had to do was peel off the paper on the back to expose the other side of the fusible and iron it onto my card.

I usually add stitching around the edge to hold my image down....but it didn't need it and I thought it looked better without it.  Next time I would iron it for less time and a cooler iron....as the hot iron did cause the card to warp a bit.  Paper fuses in a matter of seconds.....fabric needs a little more time.  I'll press it under a weight tonight and maybe it will straighten out.  That's what experimenting is for!!!

And the best part is I have the rest of the collage sheet to do something totally different with. Stay tuned for more cards with fused fall papers.