Leaves captured

The leaves have changed from green into their vibrant autumn colors...and now they are dropping...quickly.

So, I thought I better quick make some cards to celebrate and capture this ever-changing season. Used my new Tim Holtz "blueprint" stamp of an oak leaf for the background and then added several colors and some clear embossing powder to highlight and pop the one on the corner. A few punches of my "Oakey Dokey" Fiskars squeeze punch and bonus points for digging out the sewing machine too!  This was how I celebrated "World Card-Making Day" on Saturday. How did you participate?

Hope you get some time this week to "sit and watch the leaves turn". This season will be over before you know it.

 

Impressions

This idea came to me while I was walking through the leaves.  Why not take a leaf and create a  background with it.  I'm not talking about what the kids do with leaf rubbing, although that would work too.  What I did was use a leaf as a stamp.

First I dug around to find a leaf that was a little damp still and I flattened it out between two magazines for about a half of hour.  Then I grabbed my ink pad and went to work.  I inked the leaf on scrap paper and then pressed it to my card stock over and over until I liked the look.

After inking and stamping many times I got the look I had in mind.  There is no pattern it's just random, I decided to leave the pattern look to the paper.

I mounted it on paper, which is from my stash so unfortunately I cannot tell you who the manufacturer is.  I like the touch of pink in the plaid paper and the brown in the paper coordinated with my leaf stamping.

Then I was ready to add my embellishments and stamped image.  The stamp is from The Greeting Farm and was colored using Copic Markers.  The leaves and acorn are all Sassafras Lass die cuts.  I did end up turning the card to portrait because it just worked better when I started to add the finishing touches.  I decided to keep it simple so I did "leaf" it alone after just a few embellishments.

  Happy Stamping!

Tag...you're it!

I don't make tags very often. In fact, I don't play tag very often either. But for this challenge...I got to "play" with tags. A tutorial over on the Fiskateer blog got me started punching, white-washing, layering, coloring, stringing, and adding ribbon, I just couldn't stop.

I started with a cereal box. 2 points for me for being "green"! I cut out 2 tag shapes and then glued on some punches (a Martha Stewart apple for one and a Fiskars "Oakey Dokey" leaf for the other). I glued these on and then started adding other items. I just started digging around through my stash of "scrap" and found all sorts of interesting things...felt circles, buttons, fringe, lace, twine. You know, all of those bits and pieces that are just too precious to throw away yet tend to sit in the bottom of your bin. Now is your chance to use that little 1 inch scrap of ribbon that you've been hoarding, I mean, saving. After I glued these items on, I added some water to some white acrylic paint and white-washed the whole tag. I wiped some off in some areas and left the white on in others.

After the tags dried, I added some color with paints, inks, oil pastels, stickles, and then added a simple phrase to each tag. I covered them all with Mod Podge and let them dry. They took a

L O N G time to dry. I had to practice my patience! Finally, I punched holes in the top and added more ribbon scraps. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I could make 1000 tags and still not put much of a dent in my ribbon scraps. Well, maybe a 1000 would make a dent.

A big "thank you" to Lead Fiskateer Cheryl for getting me to "play tag". Let's see your tags. These would be great to add to a bottle of wine as a hostess gift, don't you think?

Falling Leaves

Oops! What bad bloggers we have been recently.Holidays, illness and just plain laziness I think. There has been much talk on the Streets recently, how mojo is missing from our creative sisters. People are doing anything but scrapping - even cleaning!

So to help get us all back on track and to prepare for the welcome return of our monthly crop this weekend (challenges are posted throughout the weekend and you can win scrappy prizes paper or digital) here are some seasonal quotes.

Autumn.. the year's last, loveliest smile.

....William C. Bryant
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf's a flower.

....Albert Camus
No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one Autumnal face.

....John Donne
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

....George Eliot

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.

....Stanley Horowitz
For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.

....Edwin Way Teale
Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,

We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!

....Humbert Wolfe

Come said the wind to the leaves one day,

Come o're the meadows and we will play.

Put on your dresses scarlet and gold,

For summer is gone and the days grow cold.

....A Children's Song of the 1880's

October's poplars are flaming torches lighting the way to winter.

....Nova Bair
Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn.

....Elizabeth Lawrence
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,Fluttering from the autumn tree.

....Emily Bronte
By all these lovely tokens September days are here,

With summer's best of weather and autumn's best of cheer.

....Helen Hunt Jackson

To help you along with these I have a little freebie for you.... A Leaf String! Some pretty leaves pinned to a string.

Just right to grace your LO's this autumn.

Find it here for a few weeks or so.