Fusion - Autumn Leaves

My calendar says "autumn" but the weather says "I don't want summer to end!"  It's been lovely here and although I don't want to admit that summer is over, I know that the leaves will be changing soon.  As luck would have it, our challenge at Fusion embraces those autumn-colored leaves  so I jumped on the bandwagon1

I combined these gorgeous Fusion colors with the sketch at The Paper Players.  I stamped a bunch of leaves in these beautiful colors and arranged then haphazardly horizontally to mimic the sketch.  Then I added a simple sentiment at the bottom.

Thanks for stopping by!  Remember at Fusion you can use the sketch, the inspiration, or both! It's up to you!

Supplies
Stamps:  Leaf Prints (Papertrey Ink); Always There (Altenew)
Paper:  Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Whisper White (Stampin' Up!); Ocean Tides (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Pumpkin Pie (Stampin' Up!); Honey Drizzle, Burnt Red (Altenew); Ocean Tides (Papertrey Ink); Nocturne (Versafine Clair)
Accessories:  enamel dots (Freckled Fawn)

Freshly Made Sketches 505

The funny thing about Blogger is that you have to actually click "Publish" in order for your blog post to be seen by others!  Sorry folks.  I'm late for my Freshly Made Sketches post because I forgot to do just that.  But I'm here now with my card designed by the very talented Narelle.

The air has cooled quite a bit where I live and that has got my digging around in my stash for autumn themed stamps.  The challenge code word at Addicted to CAS is "autumn" so I took that as a sign that I was on the right path.  I made three versions of this card because I kept messing something up and I'm still not entirely happy with it, but as my friend Linda advises, call it a Mona Lisa, post it anyway, and move along to the next card.  Good advice.  The card I'll share tomorrow is much better looking, I promise!

Thanks for stopping by!  My teammates at Freshly Made Sketches have some fabbo cards to share so check them out!

Supplies
Stamps:  Fall Colors (Precious Remembrance); Confetti Shapes Circle (The Ton)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!); Cocoa Bean (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Autumn Blaze, Firebrick, Espresso (Altenew); Versamark
Accessories:  Confetti Shapes Circle die (The Ton) copper embossing powder (Ranger)

Freshly Made Sketches 211

Welcome to Wednesday and another new sketch from your friends at Freshly Made Sketches!  This week our designer comes from halfway around the world from me!  It's Karren from New Zealand of course!  She's designed a great sketch for you this week and when you stop by her blog be prepared - she's an enabler of the first order.  Her techniques make you want to sign up for tutorials and her supplies might make you want to bust your crafting budget!  But don't be afraid there's lots of inspiration there too!

I pretty much followed the sketch exactly. My only regret is that I wish I had stamped the sentiment in a dark ink so that it showed up better.  It looks better in real life but it's really difficult to see here.  In case you're wondering it says "thank you!"

The challenge this week at The Paper Players is all about autumn and thanks so I'll be adding this over there as well.

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to pop on over to Freshly Made Sketches for loads of inspiration from our design team.  I hope we get to see you in the gallery this week!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Label Love (Altenew)
Paper:  Kraft (Papertrey Ink); Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, So Saffron, Whisper White (SU)
Ink:  So Saffron
Accessories:  Starburst Framelits (SU); Pierced Circle STAX, Blueprints 15 (My Favorite Things); Stitched Leaves die (Lawn Fawn);Curvy Leaves die (Elizabeth Craft Designs)

colourQ 315

Hello, hello!  It's time for another challenge from colourQ!  The colors this week are bold and (eventually) made me think of fall!  They are inspired by this napkin.

The colors had me a bit stymied at first.  Then I decided to just start layering them and see how they all looked together.  I followed the sketch from As You See It (with the leaves taking the place of the round doily shape) and added an autumn themed sentiment so that I could play along with Can You Case It too.  In the end, I am pretty pleased at how this turned out!

My fellow colourQ teamies have got some gorgeous cards to show you this week, so be sure to stop on by check them out.  I hope that we'll see you in the gallery!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Fall Colors (Precious Remembrance)
Paper:  Lost Lagoon, Raspberry Ripple, Cajun Craze, Always Artichoke, Vellum (SU)
Ink:  Cajun Craze
Accessories:  Pierced Fishtail Flag STAX, Sentiment Strips die (My Favorite Things); Labels Four die (Spellbinders); Leaves die (Penny Black); Stripes stencil (Tim Holtz); translucent embossing paste (Dreamweaver)

colourQ 312

The new palette at colourQ will surely make you think of Halloween.  But I decided to have a little fun with the colors and make a card with some leaves - autumn style.

The Sketch at As You See It was a good jumping off point for me and since the challenge this week at Time Out Challenges is autumn I decided I'd try my hand at adapting these colors for a bit of an autumn themed card.  An old favorite stamp set,  French Foliage, provided the leaves and the Patio Stone circle in the background was stamped with Basic Gray, stamping off once so the color would be a bit muted.  I love how this looks, especially with the black embossing paste design down the side.

The colourQ design team has made some beautiful cards for you to see this week so be sure to check them out.  I hope to see you in the gallery!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps:  French Foliage (SU); Patio Stone (Designs by Ryn); Hashtags (Tim Holtz)
Paper:  Basic Black, Whisper White (SU)
Ink:  Basic Gray, Tangerine Tango, Pumpkin Pie (SU); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Diagonal Strip stencil (Simon Says Stamp); black embossing paste (Wendy Vecchi); enamel dots (My Mind's Eye)

Autumn Wishes

I was so productive yesterday.  I managed to make three cards, try a different take on some shepard's pie, go to the supermarket, watch some football and all of that in plenty of time to watch the season premier of The Walking Dead.  That's a good day I say to myself!

The first card I made was for the color challenge at The Paper Players, uses the layout at Deconstructed Sketch, the Autumn theme at As You See It and a button and sentiment for Sentimental Sundays.  Whew!

I wish the three leaves showed up a little better, but they all seem to blend together a bit.  I rock and rolled the colors on them but was having a hard time adding a little definition between them with my extra juicy Mossy Meadow ink pad.  It kept adding much more color than I wanted so I stopped trying to do it before I ruined them.  They look better in real life!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  French Foliage (SU); Distressed Grid (Creative Embellishments); Fall Colors (Precious Remembrance)

Paper:  Classic Ivory (Flourishes); Hello Honey, Mossy Meadow, Tangelo Twist, Very Vanilla (SU)

Ink:  Hello Honey, Tangerine Tango, Mossy Meadow (SU)

Accessories:  Candy Cane button, Always Artichoke seam binding ribbon, Decorative Dots embossing folder (SU); Pierced Square STAX (My Favorite Things)

Freshly Made Sketches 157 and Colour Me...! 41

Happy Wednesday everyone!  Time for a new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and it's my second week guest designing at Colour Me...! so I get to show you some cool colors too!  This week Amy is our sketch hostess and we're going striking with the colors!

Isn't this sketch fantastic?  It's wide open to interpretation and the star can be substituted for any shape.  I started with a little textured layer and since the colors made me think of fall I added some leaves inked up with a little rock and roll technique.

Be sure to head on over to Freshly Made Sketches and Colour Me...! to check out the beautiful cards the respective design teams have made.  They will knock your socks off!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Fall Colors (Precious Remembrance)

Paper:  Classic Ivory (Flourishes); Naturals White (Neenah); Hello Honey (SU)

Ink:  Hello Honey, Cherry Cobbler (SU)

Accessories:  Bricked embossing folder (Tim Holtz); Cherry Cobbler button (SU); baker's twine

Freshly Made Sketches 153

Hello, hello!  Wednesday's around here mean a brand new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches!  This week our hostess is Jen Brum who has given us a fantastically versatile sketch. 

I've been seeing a trend toward warm fall colors and leaves as I poke around blogland lately and since I just picked up a new stamp set with pretty leaves I decided that I would use it this week for my card.  Funny thing is that once I had this card all made and ready to photograph, I felt there was something missing.  So I grabbed a piece of burlap ribbon and stuck it behind the leaves.  It was a quick fix and I think it looks pretty good!

It just so happens that the challenge this week at The Paper Players and Just Us Girls is to use leaves on our cards so I'm going to enter this card over there too.  

Don't forget to check out the cards over at Freshly Made Sketches.  It's no surprise that they are pretty amazing!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Fall Colors (Precious Remembrance)
Paper:  Kraft (Papertrey Ink); Early Espresso, Very Vanilla (SU)

Ink:  Dark Chocolate, Ripe Avocado, Canyon Clay (Papertrey Ink); Early Espresso, Crumb Cake (SU)

Accessories:  Blueprints 13 die (My Favorite Things); Linen Thread (SU); button, washi tape, book binding tape, burlap, homemade enamel dots

Freshly Made Sketches 109

It's time for a brand new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches and this week I'm the hostess!  I designed the sketch to be full of squares and rectangles with lots of room for creative interpretation.  For my card I decided to combine the sketch with the leafy challenge at Friday Mashup, which conveniently gave me an excuse to use these awesome new leaf dies.

I have secretly admired the sponged color effect that you get using Distress Inks so when there was a recent sale at Joann I decided to buy a bunch of colors and try my hand at it.  I watched a few videos on You Tube and went to work using some orange, green and brown colors.  I'm a novice but I think these nicely resemble leaves as they turn colors at this time of year.

As usual the amazing Freshly Made Sketches design team have created some awesome cards this week so be sure to check them out.  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Gorgeous Grunge (SU); Meadow Greens (Papertrey Ink)

Paper:  Pure Ivory (Gina K); Early Espresso, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, Well Worn DSP (SU); Neenah Natural White

Ink:  Early Espresso (SU); Vintage Sepia (Versafine); Spiced Marmalade, Mowed Lawn, Walnut Stain (Distress Ink)

Accessories:  Stitched Leaves die (Lawn Fawn); Grove Branch die (Memory Box); Pierced Rectangle STAX (My Favorite Things)

Less Is More 90 and Play Date Cafe 154

The theme challenge this week at Less Is More is AUTUMN .  That sort of challenge is no problem for me since I seem to have collected a few leafy sets over the years.  The biggest problem I had was choosing which one to use!  I chose to make my autumn card using the colors from the challenge at The Play Date Cafe.  They are calling the colors "flame, grape, and mulberry" and to my eye the photo inspiration looked like Cajun Craze, Pacific Point, and Elegant Eggplant so that's what I went with.

I've got to say this was a really tough color challenge for me.  I fretted and changed my mind about a hundred times before I settled on masking the leaves from Gently Falling around the thank you sentiment from Much Appreciated.  I love the look of masked stamps, but I don't love the halo effect masking sometimes creates.  I did get white spots around my mask, but I filled them in with markers.  

I almost gave up when I was making a card for this challenge because I couldn't decide what to do, but after a while the ol' stubbornness kicked in and I wouldn't let these colors get the best of me!  I figured I had put so much energy into designing something there was no way I was going to scrap what I had started.  So I trudged along.  I don't love this card, but I think it's got a certain clean and simple appeal anyway!

Thanks for stopping by!

Freshly Made Sketches 55

This week the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches is brought to you by me.  I always get a bit nervous when it's my  turn to host.  The old self-doubt kicks in as I wonder if I should have tweaked the sketch to make it more interesting.  I hope you like it!

This week I got it in my head that I wanted to use burlap and that I wanted to try my hand at LeAnne's fab crinkly bow.  She graciously created this tutorial for it and since I'm such a huge fan of the bow (and her) I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to try it.

I had a bit of trouble when I tried to pick some DSP for my burlap/crinkly bow card.  The obvious choice was this Orchard Harvest paper, but I made a card with it a few weeks ago for this very same challenge (also using burlap) and I didn't want to just copy the same thing all over again.  I opted for this pretty pattern and added the burlap as my vertical layer.  Then I tried my hand at dying some seam binding ribbon with my Early Espresso reinker.  The results, though a bit splotchy in real life, are actually pretty cool.  The splotchiness seems to give it an iridescent look.  I tried valiantly for at least a half an hour to create a bow worthy of LeAnne's tutorial, but I just wasn't happy with the result so I ended up cutting off a piece of it and threading it through a Brushed Bronze Designer Button and attaching it to the bottom of my Wonderfall leaves.

In hindsight, I think my bow was probably just fine, but the perfectionist in me wasn't satisfied, so I'll give it a try again later.

In the meantime I can't forget to mention that the aforementioned LeAnne is joining the gals at Freshly Made Sketches along with the super-talented Narelle Farrugia as Guest Designers this month.  Be sure to hop on over to their blogs and welcome them to the team!  And don't forget to pop on over to Freshly Made Sketches and check out the cards from the design team.  I've got it on good authority that you'll love every one!

Thanks for stopping by!

colourQ 156

It's so fun to see color challenges make the transition from summer to fall, and this week Arielle's colourQ challenge has got some wonderful colors for fall.  For this challenge, I jumped at the opportunity to ink up some stamps from French Foliage.

I did a little rocking and rolling on my leaves using all of the colors from the challenge and I added a little Designers Natural Button for some 3D interest.  I also based my layout on the sketch challenge at Unscripted Sketches, although I'll be the first to admit that it doesn't look like it.

I scored some vertical lines on my card so that it would fit the sketch, but those lines proved very difficult to show up in my photos.  I tried a bunch of things before I realized that I needed to get the card out of the direct line of my light source.  So I experimented some more and took this photo.

Voila!  Lines!  Good thing I don't have to make a living as a photographer!

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to head on over to colourQ and see what the super-amazing and oh-so-talented design team has created for your viewing pleasure.  You won't be disapppointed!

Dynamic Duos 19 and Less Is More 84

I think it's been a while since I participated in the one layer challenge at Less Is More.  But that challenge practically begged me to use the colors from Dynamic Duos and to ink up French Foliage, an old favorite that I've been neglecting.

I did a little masking with these stamps.  I stamped the leaf in Cajun Craze first, then created a mask to cover the leaf over before I stamped the script in Always Artichoke.  It can be pretty difficult to not get the "halo effect" around the masked image but I pressed really hard and it came out perfectly!  

At first I left the card with just those two images but I wasn't entirely happy with the result.  I decided it needed a sentiment and I spent a half hour rooting around my stamp room looking for something simple to complement the simple layout of the card.  I settled on one from Thank You Kindly.

This morning I was up early to catch breakfast with my mother and father and their Saturday morning breakfast crew.  Then I was off to Brimfield (Massachusetts) to check out the antique show going on there.  It'a a huge antique show that takes place three times a year and I used to go faithfully in May and September of each year.  But as my house grew full of stuff that used to belong to other people and I ran out of room to add new stuff, I stopped going.  I missed the adventure of "antiquing" so I decided to head on up there today.  I bought a couple of small things and despite the rainy weather had a great time tromping around the different fields.  I only saw a fraction of what was there before the threat of torrential downpours sent me home again.  I think I've caught the antique bug again and am now anxiously awaiting the next show in May!

Thanks for stopping by!

Create With Connie and Mary 217

Hello everyone!  I'm so excited to share with you that Holly Endress will be joining us at Create With Connie and Mary for the month of September as a guest designer!  I sure hope you'll pop on over to her blog to show her some love!  

Today Connie and Mary have cooked up quite a great sketch for you.  I think it's perfect for showing off gorgeous DSP and some fantastic stamps.  Take a look:

I couldn't resist using my Wonderfall stamp for this sketch. I love layering the leaves and they are perfect for a little rock-and-roll coloring.  I added some pretty baker's twine and button for a finishing touch!  I actually waffled a bit about whether or not I should add a sentiment to this card but decided against it.  I often like to leave cards blank so that I can add an appropriate sentiment at a later date.  One thing for sure is that fall is definitely in the air because the challenge this week at The Paper Players is to use leaves or trees on a project.

There's still time to sign up for the Create With Connie and Mary 2012 Holiday Edition.  Don't forget to head on over to Create With Connie and Mary to find out all about it and to check out the latest inspiration from the design team for this latest sketch challenge. You won't be sorry!