A BIT OF BARNYARD H-EWE-MOR

Starting the day with a bit of humor is always therapeutic! Yesterday the Snarky Sisterhood announced their September theme - "F is for Finally Fall". That definitely has my vote! September is my favorite month, but that's most likely because practically everyone in my family has a September (or June) birthday. It starts on the 9th with my twin grands' birthdays, followed by my husband's, followed by mine, followed by our son and his wife's anniversary. My father also had a September birthday.

I recently purchased this very silly stamp set from Whimsey Stamps ("So Weird" #CWSD473) filled with barnyard animals and humorous sentiments. I really had no plans for how I would use it. Be prepared to see these great weird animals again off and on. But when I started on this card I used a couple of old stamp sets to complete my idea. The sentiment is from an old fall Impression Obsession set (#WP683 "Leaf Set").

I started with an ancient flurry of leaves (probably Inkadinkado) that I stamped in yellow, orange, and rust inks for a background. Then I cut the "EWE" off of one of the Whimsey Stamps sentiments and stamped it in black over the leaves. (I have a bad habit of cutting out individual words, and then sometimes they get lost.) Then I masked out the single word and over-stamped the old IO sentiment. It was a lucky stroke that they happened to match pretty much in font size. The ewe was stamped upside down over the leaves and the card stock was trimmed out with a stitched rectangular die. I matted the die-cut panel with a bit of brown card stock and attached the layers to the front on my white card base. Finally, I stamped my ewe a second time, fussy cut her body, and attached it to the face of the card with dimensional foam.

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #266 F is for Finally Fall

LOOKING FORWARD TO FALL

After a hot summer, the temps are dropping a bit and making it easier to be outside. I'm now definitely ready for fall and we have some challenges that are leaning in that direction! I went to Freshly Made Sketches #702 this morning and was inspired by Cecile's layout. However, I took some liberties with her sketch by rotating it about 90 degrees.  

I had a black A2 card base sitting on my desk and decided to use it for my background. I die cut a wreath base from Tim Holtz out of a metallic gold cardstock. I cut it twice - once for the wreath and the second time for the center fill. The center fill is a scrap of gold printed Japanese rice paper that I've had for years. This pattern reminded me of ginkgo leaves, so I pulled out a Spellbinders "Autumn Wonder" die and die cut the ginkgo leaf twice with two different metallic cardstocks. I layered everything onto the black card base after gold heat embossing the sentiment and slipped in a fussy cut gold-printed rice paper flower. The final step was to add 3 small black enamel dots. 

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #702 - A Sketch by Cécile

 

AUTUMN LEAVES

There's been a wealth of potential autumn challenges of late and I sat down over the weekend to use up some of my old autumn printed papers and a pile of brown cardstock that has been languishing on my shelves for a couple of years. I made several cards with the same layout, but changed out various scraps to make different combinations. By the time I got around to photographing my work, a couple of the challenges had closed, but still open are Inkspirational Challenge #326 - Mood Board and The Paper Players Color Challenge #PP711 - Shades of Orange & Brown.

I used one of my favorite autumn sentiments from Impression Obsession (#WP684 "Leaf Set") and stamped it in PTI "Dark Chocolate" on various pieces of ivory and cream papers that I had die cut with a fancy framed die (don't know the manufacturer because I've had it for so long). Then I die cut several stitched rectangular panels of printed papers and matted them each and attached to the face of mostly brown card bases - well, one is on a base of PTI "Ocean Tides" card stock. The leaves were all die cut using Spellbinders "Autumn Wonder" #S6-220 and small scraps from my paper drawers. I pulled some silk thread through one of the leaves with a sequin and tied it off before attaching to the face of the card. This was such an easy card to duplicate, that I believe I'll make a bunch more over the next month.

In these photos I shot them in pairs based on the background papers. It was a task to make these photos, as the light is low today:

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #326 - Mood Board (inkspirationalchallenges.blogspot.com)

 The Paper Players: PP711 - A Colour Challenge from Joanne

HAPPY FALL!

AHHH, my favorite time of the year! I was wanting a break from Halloween cards (although I still need a couple more), so the Freshly Made Sketches current challenge provided a nice respite. 

There's not much to say about this card, as it's so CAS. The vining pumpkin image is a really old stamp set - probably one of my first fall stamps. I stamped it with PTI "Ripe Avocado", repeating the image across the full width of the white card stock panel. Then I added the sentiment from Impression Obsessions #WP684 "Leaf Set" and colored the pumpkins with my Copic markers. The final steps were to trim out the image by die cutting a stitched rectangle, attaching it to the face of a white card base, and creating a custom envelope.

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #655 - A Sketch by Jen B

On a personal note:

I've been planning for some time to share our new pollinator garden with you. I've made mention several time of it since it's been a 2-year project in the making. We completely tore out the front lawn that went almost down to the street and have replaced it with a smaller lawn area and lots of bee and butterfly-loving native grasses, shrubs, and perennials. 

Here is the day in October 2022 where everything had been removed and the area to become lawn was being leveled and prepared for irrigation:

And here is a shot from the same angle showing the newly renovated garden yesterday morning:

The lawn and plants near the entry were installed in July 2023 and the plants here on the slope were just put in this past May. We're really pleased with the outcome, as are the bees and butterflies - then there's the cats... So far the playful kittens have only destroyed one plant. By next year I'm hoping they can find other forms of entertainment!

Did I mention we have a community of now 15 feral cats that call our property home? They're all spayed and neutered and have been named, so I doubt they're going anywhere else anytime soon.

SIGNS OF AUTUMN - CAS

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means - a new challenge at The Paper Players! The very talented Joanne is this week's host, and she has chosen "Signs of Autumn" as the CAS challenge.  

The Paper Players: PP662 - A Clean-and-Simple Challenge from Joanne

I used one of my favorite sentiments from a fall Impression Obsession stamp set of several years ago. I stamped it onto an ivory cardstock that I had pre-cut with a stitched rectangular die. I used PTI's "Dark Chocolate" ink and then overprinted a PTI flourish in pale orange to suggest steam coming from the die cut pumpkin cup (Trinity Stamps #TMD-088 "Boo Brew"). I layered everything over a matching ivory card base and lined a coordinating envelope with some printed paper from my fall stash.

You'll have fun with Joanne's theme this week, but remember to keep it CAS! If you need a refresher on what we mean by CAS:

• Minimal layers and embellishments
• Plenty of open space, aka "white" space
• Simple and uncluttered

On a personal note: On Friday morning we delivered two more young feral cats to SNYP and found out it was one male and one female. That gets us down to just three more juveniles for an appointment in December - hoping we don't get blessed with any more! While waiting in line Friday I met a woman who is feeding 56 feral cats and has names for all of them! 

LEANNE'S COLORS

Well, the beginning of a new week and a new challenge at The Paper Players! This week our host is the Lovely LeAnne (alliterative!)  and she has selected a great collection of colors for fall - great for Halloween or fall images. I was feeling a bit 'Halloweened' out this week, so went with fall images. I hope to see lots of designers playing along with us!

 The Paper Players: PP661 - A Color Challenge from LeAnne

I stayed on the CAS side this week with some new images that I treated myself to during my birthday week - "Hello, Pumpkin" from Graphic 45. I started by stamping the larger pumpkin on a white die cut stitched rectangle with Memento's "Black Tuxedo" ink, overlapping it with a smaller pumpkin, and coloring the stems with an olive Copic marker. Then I stamped again on scraps of orange, purple, and olive polka dot papers, fussy cut the images, and pieced them, slipping the purple one under the orange. I finished with a PTI sentiment in black. It looked a bit bare, so I added a couple of punches on each side of the sentiment, pulled through and tied orange and purple twine in a bow, and mounted everything onto a white card base with some dimensional foam. Done.

Our design team has some beautiful examples for your inspiration. Visit their blogs and be sure to let them know how much you appreciate their challenge examples! 

On a personal note: The mention of Memento's "Tuxedo Black" reminded me to tell of my activities of the last couple of days. We keep getting "blessed" with kittens that feral mothers have been bringing in for us to feed and we have been trapping/spaying/neutering about every 6 months, hoping to catch up one of these days so we can control the neighborhood cat population. Last night we trapped 2 little juvenile tuxedos and delivered them this morning to the local chapter of SNYP (Spay & Neuter Your Pets). I think I mentioned that when we went through the last round of spaying and neutering, we had a lactating female, and she brought her 4 babies to us in June. The two little guys we took in this morning are part of her litter and we're hoping to get the other 2 in next Friday morning (I think 2 females). In the meantime, 2 more little calicos have shown up - it's feeling like a never-ending revolving cat door! I love cats, so I can't not feed them. Fortunately, some of the neighbors are helping out because we're all so disgusted with a woman down the block that lets her 13 cats run wild and breed constantly, leaving all of us to pick up the slack. The city has many laws on the books meant to control dogs, but nothing related to cats.   

AUTUMN BLESSINGS

I consider having a fall birthday to be a blessing, as it's my favorite time of the year! My birthday is Monday and I treated myself to some new fall crafting supplies and set aside some time this morning to play with a couple of the dies. I used the current Freshly Made Sketches #604 as inspiration. 

I'm really happy with the simplicity of this card and think I'll use it for my personal fall/Thanksgiving card this year. It will be really easy to replicate 30 of these. The background flourish is from an old fall set, and I stamped it with Hero Arts "Wet Cement". Then I overprinted it with a sentiment from PTI "Stylized Autumn" and heat embossed it with Stampendous Pearl Lustre "Peridot". Finally, I attached these cute toadstools from Spellbinders "Autumn Wonder" dies with dimensional foam.

So, I'm sending it over to Freshly Made Sketches: 

Freshly Made Sketches: Freshly Made Sketches #604 - A Sketch by Cécile

 

HELLO, FALL

I know that fall hasn't arrived, but can't I wish a bit? I'm so ready for it. That's why I was delighted to see Jaydee's beautiful colors in this week's The Paper Players challenge. These colors just shouted fall to me!

The Paper Players: PP657 - A Color Challenge from Jaydee 

Sadly, once I sat down to make a card, I had a complete brain fart and really struggled with how I wanted to use them. I worked at it for hours and then just had to step away and come back to it. I made the card but wasn't particularly satisfied, so just went to bed and slept on it. It looked a little bit better to me this morning so I'm running with it. That's just how it goes sometimes.

My interpretation of "Pebbled Path" is warm gray, and I have some card stock in my stash that is a medium-toned warm gray, so I started with cutting a card base from it and attaching a white die cut stitched rectangle to the face of it. The next layer was a slightly smaller white stitched rectangle that I stamped a sentiment on from Impression Obsession #WP684 "Leaf Set" after die cutting a Stampin' Up Framelit "Chalk Talk" tag from the center. I slipped a deep teal scrap behind and die cut and colored a couple of fall leaves (no idea whose dies they are) to place over and under the opening. But it was looking too spare, so I decided to overprint an old leaf flourish (maybe Inkadinkado) with Hero Arts "Wet Cement" ink. I stamped it on both layers and then attached the top layer with some dimensional foam. Finally, I attached two leaves and some itsy-bitsy metallic pearls and went to bed. 

Now it's Sunday and I came into my office/craft room (which is complete bedlam at the moment), made a coordinating envelope, and finished up the inside with this Elizabeth Lawrence quote and more swirling leaves. 

It's now your turn and I'm sure you'll be a lot less challenged than I was yesterday. Check in with all of the Design Team members to see their beautiful responses to Jaydee's colors and let them know how much you appreciate their work. 

Added Note:

HA! I've been using this quote from Elizabeth Lawrence for years on fall birthday and Thanksgiving cards without ever knowing who she is! I actually looked her up this morning and it turns out that she is a 20th century horticultural writer who also happened to be the first woman to graduate from North Carolina State University with a degree in Landscape Architecture. Her home and garden in Charlotte are on the Historic Registry and open to the public. Consider yourselves now educated on Elizabeth Lawrence!

Elizabeth Lawrence Garden : The Garden Conservancy

CHANGING SEASONS

The weather has been lovely all week here in Southern Oregon and leaves are starting to change as the evenings get cooler. Several of the card challenges are using the emerging fall season to inspire us in our projects. I'm sharing my changing leaf with Addicted to CAS #230 - "Autumn", Paper Players #PP611 "Changing Seasons - Autumn", and Tic Tac Toe #181 (I used the left vertical column - Leaves/Metallic/Embossing). 

This Impression Obsession sentiment and image come from a favorite stamp set (#WP684 "Leaf Set", designed by Dina Kowal) that I've had in my stash for more than 3 years and have used repeatedly. I had some odds and ends of ivory textured paper that I stamped the image on - once in orange/brown and a second time in greens. I overprinted the sentiment with VersaMark ink and heat-embossed it with gold embossing powder. I die-cut a small stitched rectangle from the orange image and overlaid it on the green leaf image with dimensional foam, after die-cutting a larger rectangle from the green layer. I stitched a strand of metallic gold thread through the stem of the green leaf and matted the larger rectangle with some metallic gold cardstock and attached this to a side-folded card base that I found in my ivory scraps drawer. The coordinating envelope is lined with metallic gold vellum. I think it might also be appropriate to share this card with Shopping Our Stash #480 - "Leaf Me Alone". 

Here's a closer look to show the metallic gold on this card:

Addicted to CAS: Challenge #230 - Autumn

The Paper Players: PP611 - A Theme Challenge from Joanne

Added October 8, 2022:

TTTC181 - Featured Designer Jeanne - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

Shopping Our Stash Weekly Challenge Blog: SOS480 - Leaf Me Alone

THE LEAVES OF A BOOK

I recently happened upon a challenge I was not aware of - Shopping Our Stash - and I'm fully on-board with the mission of this challenge! I think I came upon this blog via The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers. The current challenge is SOS #477 "Back to Books". So, from my stash I submit the following:

Digging deep into my stash, I had forgotten I had a sheet of marbled rice paper, the paper that was (and still is sometimes) used for endpapers in bookbinding. I die-cut the maple leaves (PTI) from the marbled paper and overprinted them with PTI's "Leaf Prints" in their "Dark Chocolate" ink. In my kraft/tan drawer I found this already top-folded tan card. I mounted a deckled edge rectangular die (Tim Holtz) cut from a scrap of wood-grained kraft paper and a smaller deckled rectangle from the page of an old book. The sentiment is from a very old autumn stamp set and I heat embossed it in white on a dark brown tag tied with brown twine and mounted it with dimensional foam. (Albert Camus was an early 20th century Nobel Prize-winning author, and I've used this stamped quote many times over the years.)  I glued the two leaves to the face of the card after scoring and bending the top one for dimension. I used some of the marbled paper also to line the ivory envelope. 

What a great idea for a weekly challenge blog!

  Shopping Our Stash Weekly Challenge Blog: SOS477 - Back To Books

Added September 25, 2022:

 

GRATEFUL

Even though summer is showing no signs of letting up, I'm starting to think of fall - my favorite time of the year and also my birthday season. I have a strong preference for autumn colors and, in fact my home is predominantly fall in tones. So, this is my first card for the fall season. I was inspired by the CAS Colours & Sketches Challenge #484.

I had a heck of a time photographing this card! It just looked flat, and it's really not. I think one of the reasons it was so hard to photograph might also be that I chose to translate this into a slimline card.

  

The leaf stamps are from Impression Obsession's #CL698 "Early Sunsets". The set has four small squares, but I repeated the oak leaf and rotated the view of it. After stamping these with black ink I colored all of them with Copic Markers and die-cut "Grateful" (Papertrey Ink) from the face of the images. I die-cut it an additional 3 times with dark chocolate cardstock and stacked the letters. Before gluing the letters to the face of the top layer, I stamped "FOR YOU" in PTI "Dark Chocolate" and tied some brown twine to the letter G. I trimmed the top layer to the same proportion as the card and matted it with a matching white rectangle. 

CAS Colours & Sketches: Challenge #484 -Sketch (cascoloursandsketches.blogspot.com)

ADDICTED TO PURPLE CAS

It's already time for a new challenge at Addicted to CAS and our talented host Ceal has selected Purple as the new code word. So where to start? I've finally put away all of my Halloween supplies and wanted to put some energy into the fall season. Purple isn't necessarily a color I associate with fall, but leaves obviously are. I thought to use gold heat embossing with the purple but then settled on copper instead.

I started with a cream cardstock for the background and kraft for the leaf. Using PTI's "Leaf Prints" stamp and matching die, I stamped the leaf with VersaMagic chalk ink "Purple Hydrangia". When it dried it looked a bit too soft so I added some Memento "Grape Jelly" dye ink to the outside edges of the leaf. I heat embossed the veins with Zing! "Copper". I die cut a couple of Stampin' Up Framelits "Chalk Talk" tags - one in a deep purple and a smaller one in linen textured cream cardstock. The sentiment is PTI's "Stylized Autumn" that I heat embossed with copper. I punched a hole in the larger tag and strung some natural and copper bakers twine through it. Before mounting all of this to the card I heat embossed some copper Tim Holtz splatters to ground the images and radiused the corners with a Fiskars corner punch. The matching cream envelope was lined with a dark mauve lightweight paper to pull it all together.

Here's another shot of the lower part of the card to show the metallic copper highlights.

Well, get out your purple inks and/or papers and have some fun with this challenge!

 Addicted to CAS: Challenge #209 - Purple

 

On a personal note, this is my fall display on the buffet in our dining room. It's composed of a couple of very special mementos. 

Leaning against the mirror frame is a print I presented to my mother on her birthday some years ago - her name was Olive, and I brought this home after her death in 2014. It lives permanently in this spot in remembrance of her. The little round terra cotta object in the foreground is an impression of our beloved Sara's footprint that our veterinarian gave us after her parting in May. Normally during this week I have the Halloween stuff out, but this year we won't be home for Halloween. Hubby has his first Southern Oregon Repertory Singers (https://repsingers.org/) practice since the beginning of COVID, where he sings tenor. Also, our youngest granddaughter's birthday is the 28th and that always gets rolled into Halloween, so you can imagine where I'll be while Hubby is at choir practice!

Wishing all of my internet cardmaking friends a wonderful fall season!       

FIRST DAY OF FALL

It's hard to wrap my head around the idea that today is already the first day of fall! Today I'm playing with the current Just Us Girls #602 Color Week and the colors are perfect for fall - yellow, red, and orange. I decided to do a CAS design and a sentiment stamp that I haven't used before.

I started this project by cutting and folding a piece of ivory Strathmore watercolor paper, using the deckle edge for the opening side. Then on a smoother ivory recycled card stock I partially stenciled a brocade pattern with PTI "Fine Linen" ink to ground the various elements and stamped a leaf image from Impression Obsession #WP684 "Leaf Set" with Hero Arts "Butter Bar" and PTI "Summer Sunrise" and "Pure Poppy" dye inks. I fussy-cut the leaf, over-printed the sentiment (also "Leaf Set") with Altenew "Espresso" and mounted all of it onto a linen-colored mat and inserted a folded yellow ribbon. I lined the inside of the card with a bright yellow lightweight paper to accent the deckle edge and finished off by lining an ivory envelope with the same bright yellow. 

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls #602-Color Week (justusgirlschallenge.blogspot.com)

ADDICTED TO CAS - LEAF

It's hard to believe that it's far enough into the year that we're now thinking about falling leaves and pumpkins. But that's exactly where we are and our very talented Vicky has selected "Leaf" for our Challenge #206.

 

I first cut out a scrap of Strathmore watercolor paper stock and stamped it with the maple leaf from PTI's "Leaf Prints". I used Altenew's "Rocky Shore" for the base, edged with PTI's "Americano" and finally stamped the veins with Altenew's "Espresso". The watercolor paper took the dies in an interesting mottled manner, which I was hoping for, but it takes a long while for it to dry before I could use the gold embossing of the sentiment from Impression Obsession's #WP684 "Leaf Set". After die-cutting the sienna-colored cardstock with one of my new Pink Fresh "Stitched Rectangles", I ran the edges across my VersaMark watermark stamp pad and dipped it in gold embossing powder. I attached this to another slightly larger layer of the sienna cardstock and glued this to a folded Strathmore watercolor folded card. Finally I punched a couple of rectangular openings in the corner and tied some silk thread and wooden beads because, well why not? The card cried out for a bit of embellishment!

Here's a closer look at the sentiment. I'm not sure why my phone recorded a slight gray smudgy-looking shadow around the gold embossing - it's most assuredly not on the original card.

It's now your turn for your take on "Leaf"!

Addicted to CAS: Challenge #206 - Leaf