Feeling autumnal with Suse

Hey, sweet friends! Today I'm getting in an autumnal mood with a bit of a 'go to' layout design of mine: one featuring lots of pretty hand-cut leaves, falling fairly randomly on my page.

I'll be honest with you: it took me three attempts to get this background looking how I wanted it! Those mixed media ladies make it look so easy, don't they? 

I wanted to use modelling paste over my leaf templates, then brush on subtle washes of colour, before adding lots of splatters. What I found tough was knowing when to stop and with the first two sodden attempts, I definitely got too carried away!

I wanted my leaves to feel as if they were among the ones being thrown up in the air by Kitty in the photo... I'm not sure I achieved it, but I do love the relaxed, haphazard feel of all the layers. 

And there were plenty of beautiful patterns and textures in the October 'Waverly' kit to get really stuck in with! I do love the extra details in our kits like the buttons and the beautiful trim.

My final cute touch was this little bird that I fussy-cut from the Maggie Holmes Gather 'Kindred' paper - isn't it sweet, sitting there, turned away from all the action?

I'd really recommend having a play with shapes inspired by nature. Oak leaves have a lovely shape too, and there are all sorts of flower shapes that can look lovely treated in this random, layered way. 

It's a look that really is hard to get wrong, because nature gets it so right in the first place. Happy scrapping, gang!