Cool Snap

 Autumn is here, dabbing hillsides, fields and trees with her paintbrush.  

Last week we took a drive north of town on Buck Creek Road, looking for bittersweet to stuff in the windowbox.  This scene below caught my eye.

This perfect weather puts me in the mood to add the stash of Christmas cards for my mother.  This one below I created by masking and sponging with Denim Kaleidacolor from Imagine Crafts for the background.  A few spritzes of sheer Shimmer Spray give it just the right amount of holiday sparkle.  I stamped my Kaleidacolor pad on an empty acrylic block and used this ink with a Fantastix to add a bit of "snow shadow." 

I used...

Denim Kaleidacolor inkpad

Cantaloupe Memonto Dew Drop ink pad

Mini Ink Blending Foam and handles

Fantastix, bullet tip

Sheer Shimmer Spray

(all from Imaginecrafts/Tsukineko)

white cardstock

Watercolor Splash patterned paper pad (Momenta)

Trees stamp set (Inkadinkado)

Holiday Sentiments stamp set (My Sentiments Exactly)

Card Creator 5 x 7 Matting Basics B dies (Spellbinders)

2-Way Glue (EKSuccess)

acrylic block

The Leaves Grow Old

I almost think I love late autumn best of all, when the sky hangs low with wintery-looking clouds and those last bright leaves still cling to the tree branches.  I’m forever trying to capture this look on paper.  

For this card, I knew I wanted to do some double-layer stamping. 

I dotted in colorful leaves with yellow and orange dye ink...

 ...and then added  Imagine Crafts/Tsukinedo Amplify! to make the bigger tree pop from the page without adding a lot of extra bulk.

I fell in love, first with this quote and then with my card, and I decided to send it to my aunt June for her 89th birthday.

Materials Needed

 Tsukineko:       Kaleidacolor Tahiti ink;   Radiant Neon Warm ink;  Memento Rich Cocoa ink;          Radiant Neon Amplify! Electric Orange and Electric Yellow;  Sponge daubers;   Bullet tip Fantastix

·        Sheer Shimmer Spritz;  Tear It! Tape

·        Inkadinkado:  Fall Trees stamp set

       Penny Black:  Fantasy Tree stamp

·        Pretty Pink Posh:  Stitched Banner Duo die set

·        Momenta:  Gemtone Basics 8 x 8 cardstock pad

·        Miscellaneous:  kraft and white cardstock, heat gun, calligraphy pen, temporary adhesive

Thanks for visiting!!

Autumn Leaves

Fall is beautiful.

Everywhere we go, the trees are turning.

I think I like it best when the trees have nearly lost all their leaves and just a few still cling to the dark branches.

With so many colors...which one is your favorite? 

Celebrating the many colors of fall, I created this easy, colorful card.

Supplies:   Cherish Yesterday  stamp set from Hero Arts; Autumn Leaves Kaleidacolor stamp pad from Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko

Thank you so much for stopping by.

Following Fall

Many thanks

 to all of you have stopped by these past several years with 

helpful observations and kind comments.

I've recently made a few adjustments

that will make it much easier to follow me!

Meanwhile,...

enjoy autumn while it's here!

Walk through the leaves!

Stand under a golden tree!

Feel that thrilling change in the air!

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!

Hero Arts Makeover Challenge

It's still summertime here in the midwest, but my heart, as always, longs for fall.  I want to feel the cool days and crisp nights, see the trees slowly turning colors on the hillsides, smell woodsmoke in the air and hear the crunch of acorns underfoot.  

My card-thoughts turn to autumn, too.  

I wanted to enter the Hero Arts Makeover Challenge, which asks us to makeover one of our own old card designs.  What better to makeover than an old autumn card of mine?  

Looking back through photos of my older cards--some of them my first attempts--I often cringe.  But often I also come across ideas that I still like.  This leaf card is one of those. 

I decided to play with this idea today, using the same leaf from my Hero Arts Poetic Prints set, but trying a one-layer card.

First, I made this one, sponging around a circle mask and adding the outer leaves from Stampin' Up.  Everything is inked with Kaleidacolor Autumn Leaves rainbow inkpad from Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko

For a second card, I masked and sponged two background squares beneath the same leaf, using Yellow Ochre and Chestnut Roan.  I added the sentiment from Hero Arts Cherish Yesterday set.  At first, I was going to place it as I did in the original card, but I decided to go all around the edges.  

What do you think?