Hello and welcome back to the craft room and today’s Hello Fall Gnome Card post. I have been having a blast working with Affinity Designer creating my own SVG files. Today’s card will feature not only a fun little gnome I designed, but also a fall background paper that I created in Canva. Let’s get right to it.
Gnome SVG
As with most of my experiments in Affinity Designer, this gnome started as a dream. I am not an artist, so creating a character seemed almost impossible. After thinking about it for a while, what I needed to focus on was simple shapes. What simple shapes could I use to create a gnome? The two shapes I used here were a circle and a triangle. Being able to manipulate the lines of the triangle to create the beard and the hat were the most tedious. Of course I wanted my little guy to be perfect, but hey, for a first try, I think he is!
The image below is my Affinity Designer artboard with all of the different pieces of the gnome. The solid back shape is an offset mat layer. Glueing the individual pieces to this shape will give you a slight matted area around the gnome. If you don’t want the mat, then the pieces will be glued to the blue shape.
I cut my gnome completely from scraps of card stock. After downloading and resizing the SVG to Cricut Design Space, I moved each individual piece from its own cutting mat to just one mat. In the image below you can see how I adjusted the spacing of each piece of card stock. The process is somewhat tedious, but I find it much easier to cut one mat rather than five mats.
Below you can see all of the pieces cut perfectly with the Cricut Explore Air 2. When I began the concept of this card I chose to not use the mat layer. The pieces were glued down with Art Glitter Glue and then set aside under a heavy block to dry completely.
The Background Paper
This is a really special card for me. Not only did I design the gnome, but I also designed the background paper. During one of the many online craft summits this year, I learned how to create seamless digital papers in Canva. My amazing teacher was Sande Woodson. I highly suggest you check out her YouTube channel Sande’s Poema – Creative Inspiration & Training. With her help I was able to create this beautiful fall background paper.
As a surprise and a thank you for following along on my year long blogging adventure, I would like to offer my two Falling Leaves seamless digital papers to you for free!! Click on the image below to download the files from Google Drive. There are 2 files, one for the bright fall leaves and one for the light colored fall leaves like I used on today’s card. Please enjoy them and don’t forget to share your projects with me in the comments below!
I printed the background out on Premium Presentation Matte Paper that I’ve had for years. Because this was printed on an inkjet printer, I wanted to ensure nothing would happen to it if mailed on a rainy day. To accomplish that I used Tim Holtz Distress Glaze. With a light coat of the glaze my background paper is now water resistant.
Creating The Hello Fall Card
To complete my Hello Fall card I created a card base with the brown card stock from the 110lb. Recollections Coffee & Cream card stock pack. The background paper is adhered to the card base with Scor-Tape as is the white card on the inside. The Hello sentiment is cut from a card scrap with the Hello die from The Stamps of Life, while the word Fall was cut from the Alphanumeric Bold die set by Tim Holtz and Sizzix. To adhere all of the sentiment elements to the card front, I grabbed my trusty Xyron Sticker Maker.
After laying everything out on the background paper it occurred to me that the gnome die cut faded into the background. So I cut the mat layer of the gnome out of the same brown paper from the Coffee & Cream card pack. I also used Thin 3D Foam Squares from Scrapbook Adhesives to add some dimension to the card. One trick I’ve learned over the years is to add a drop of liquid glue to give myself a moment or two of wiggle room when using tape or foam adhesives. This card was no exception, so I added a drop of Art Glitter Glue to each foam square.
The Finished Hello Fall Gnome Card
I am so happy with this fun little card! Every element makes me happy and puts a smile on my face.
As you can see in the image below, the foam squares add just the right amount of height to the gnome. And the added mat layer also helps to make the little guy pop.
Thank you so much for joining me for today’s Hello Fall Gnome Card post. I would love to know if you regularly create fall themed cards or if you only make them for special occasions? I’m also looking forward to seeing what you create with the Fall Background paper download that I’m offering you. Please share all of your creations and opinions in the comments below. Until then, have a fantastic week and I will see you back in the craft room again real soon!
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