ColourCraft: Autumn wreath decoration by Karen

As it has been so dry lately we have actually got some rich autumn colours to celebrate this year so I'm drawn to recreating those and to bring them indoors with this project.

I started with 2 pieces of watercolour paper cut just narrow enough to fit through my die-cutting machine and selected gorgeous autumnal shades of Brusho crystal colours - Dark and Light Brown, Gamboge, Sandstone, Scarlet and Brilliant Red - along with Shimmer Bronze from the Brusho Acrylic Shimmer range. Then I tried a little experiment! The 'traditional' way to activate Brusho crystals is with water but I often use them mixed in other 'wet' products like gel medium so how do they react to being sprayed with the shimmer spray instead of water? Gorgeous! In the photo below the paper on the right was sprayed with water, the paper on the left was sprayed only with shimmer spray. It activated all the colours, there are no powder crystals remaining on the paper, and gave a beautiful shimmery colour over the whole paper. I could have sprayed more and made the colours diffuse similar to the paper on the right but I love the effect ththe spray gave: Definitely something I will be doing more of! Of course, I did give the paper on the right a little shimmer spray too: I couldn't resist!

The papers were then die-cut with lots of different leaf shapes. With a pile of shimmery but relatively pale leaves I knew I'd need a dark background to set them against. I took a wooden box, sprinkled in some Light and Dark Brusho crystals, sprayed them with water and spread out the colour. I also mixed the same colours with water on a palette and used this to stain the rest of the box, inside and out.

I cut a circle of brown card to support the leaves that was slightly larger than the box and glued this where they touched.

I then set about gluing down the first layer of leaves ...

and building up the layers until the card couldn't be seen. If you only use enough glue to make sure the leaves are stuck, they keep a lot of volume to make the wreath look fuller.

When a few leaves fell in the middle of the box I decided to keep them as part of the decoration. I stuck these to the base of the box with different heights of 3D foam, using two thicknesses under some leaves. Finally I added a printed banner that I had sprayed with Bronze Shimmer spray and sprinkled a tiny amount of Brusho crystals on to it so that it blended with the rest of the decoration.