Autumn at Last

My second cousin Dick wrote from Washington over a month ago:   

The trees in the yard are starting to change color and we watch the geese getting ready for their trip south (some stay here all year).  It’s been a very hot summer here, (20 days over 90 degrees)  (2 months over 80) and we are glad to see fall come around.  It was a good year for the fruit trees in the back yard; cherries, pears, plums, apples and peaches all did well.  Also the raspberries and Logan berries.

I was so jealous, for it was still hot and sticky here in Kansas.  Now, however, autumn is beginning to show.  We traveled to Homecoming in Fredonia, Kansas, on Saturday. Along the roadside, the bright gold of wild sunflowers has given way to the deeper gold of ripening soybeans--fields and fields of them.  Some are even curling and brown, ready to harvest.  Here and there, a tall tree stood out, bright red among all the other greens.  It was even sweater weather.  Add to that the smell of pork sausages smoking on the town square.  

Yes, fall is here.

And so I tried another card for the Serendipity Stamps Challenge #47, which is all about creating your own background. 

When I first saw this stamp of geese, I knew I wanted to use it to create my oldest brother's birthday card. 

Here I added a background with chalks, blending the colors (blue and brown) with a cotton ball.  I stamped everything with brown dye ink from Tsukineko and added a touch of contrasting orange to those berries on the branches from Inkadinkado.

Happy Autumn, Everyone!