Scribble Picnic - Say Goodbye to Autumn

Well, our Scribble Picnic theme for this fortnight is GOODBYE AUTUMN and I think we have.  At least here in New Jersey.  We've already had our first snow the week before Thanksgiving and it was an early Thanksgiving at that.  So my piece below is a little after-the-fact.  

We caught a little of what was left of the color on the way to Delaware for Thanksgiving dinner at our daughter's house.  We had made that trip a few weeks earlier and the colors were so intense and beautiful the time of day that we were traveling.  I do think the angle of the sun during the fall really highlights the show of color.  

That same night on the way home we played tag with the full moon.

Flipping back to the day of the snow - we had an early dismissal at school and when I got home the birds were all taking their turns at the bird feeders.  I happened to catch this bluebird as it was waiting it's turn.

Time to check out who else joined the picnic this week.  If you'd care to jump in, our theme due in two weeks is "A Few of My Favorite Things".  Sounds like fun, doesn't it!

Jingle Belles - More Figgy Pudding for the Christmas Feast

Well, with all the Thanksgiving feasting behind us, I had one more idea for another Jingle Belles card - this one a little healthier than the last.  Some holiday fruit.  Pears and strawberries fussy cut from a sheet of scrapbook paper in a filigree box made from the remnants of a fancy pastry box.  I stuck in lots of die cut greens, a twig wreath, and some self-created candles with flames.  The paper the fruit was cut from had a black background and it really popped so I thought I'd use black here hopping to get the same effect.  I edged that black paper with a glitter pen, and the sentiment is another die cut out of the pastry box paper.  

I know there's a Russian name/technique for brightly colored fruit and flowers on black but I couldn't think of it.  Originally this was to be a wreath with the pink and orange flowers from that sheet of paper also. I spent a day trying to remember the words Della Robbia, but when I looked at some photos of Della Robbia, I didn't think it lent itself to Christmas that well.   These these other dies were right in front of me on my work table and they coaxed me into using them - no shouting involved this time.  It was like putting a floral arrangment together and IRL the greens are very loose.

So now I will visit the other feast offerings at the Jingle Belles blog.  This is the last challenge for the year and I'm so grateful to Steph and Lauren for doing this all year and helping to keep a little of the crazy out of December.  Jingle Belles really do rock!

Happy Thanksgiving

Jingle Belles - Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding

Festive Food - that's the prompt for this fortnight's Jingle Belles Challenge.  Do you think that my bacon is festive enough adorned with the tiniest of holly sprigs?   I actually did stamp them with Ink on 3's Fadeout ink so I could color them with no lines with my Prismacolor pencils.  Then, whilst watching a bio on Netflix about Hedy Lamarr (she was more than just an actress!), I fussy cut them out to add to what I was assuming was bacon on this paper I found at Michael's.  (I had HWNSNBP's input on what he thought it looked like and he did agree with me.)

 

 

I used the pig stamp from a SU set and the sentiment was from a Unity KOTM which I altered to say HOGS instead of HUGS.  (I really was trying to come up with something punny regarding BAKIN and BACON but I struck out with that.)

 

I know this isn't much of a layout and frankly, I'm not even sure who I will send this to, but the idea for it just kind of took residence in my head until I got it out of my system.  I promise to make another card with festive food before the due date - hopefully it will be fruitful!

A Little Behind......Nature Observations

I've had these pictures of the end of October/beginning of November just waiting for the narrative and almost forgot about them.  These were some of the last glimpses of autumn, like the giant dahlias that decided to finally bloom just before the first frost.  We did get a couple of blooms out of that plant before it succumbed to the weather.

HWNSNBP emptied all the annuals out of the flower pots and lined them up to be put away til next spring.  

While he was raking he found this woolly bear caterpillar all curled up in the pile of leaves.  Take note that the stripes on the caterpillar are very thin suggesting a severe winter.  

Something cool growing on the garden slate.

Closer.

And yet closer.  (The inspiration for my DAY 30 drawing for INKTOBER.)

Catching a rainbow from nowhere.

And a rainbow sunset with a crescent moon.

Scribble Picnic - Forest (In the Works)

Anybody out there remember my "Thursday's Throw Aways"?  For a brief period I did a weekly post featuring a project that recycled or reused something.  I've got a project like that in the works right now and I thought it would fit in with the Scribble Picnic theme of "FOREST".  

The material I'm recycling is paper - the kind that you get in the mail in the form of postcard-like advertisements.  The more colorful the better.  And since I have access to the recycling bin in the office at school, I have an additional source besides our home recycling.  The weight of the paper is heavier than your regular cardstock and these postcards are laminated so they have a sheen all their own.  

I used a die from Concord & 9th - Take a Bough - and I just kept at it until I had enough of a pile of boughs to make my first tree.

I needed 12 of each of the horizontal boughs and 4 each of the ones that can also double as snowflakes.

First I glued together 2 sets of each size just as they were.  Then I cut the rest in half and overlapped the holes to make sections that were slightly smaller.  The snowflakes were just doubled up.  All totaled there are 18 layers to this tree.

The center hole is 1/8" and calls for a dowel of that diameter which HWNSNBP tried to find in several stores for me without any luck.  Then I thought I should check out my wood stash (yes, I have a wood stash that includes all sorts of wooden things that I used to use in my crafting years ago).  I found another item that I can recycle - the dowel I used is actually a stick from a rock candy lollipop and it has a wooden bead at the bottom end.  I remember saving these to make felt carousel horse Christmas ornaments......another project that didn't come to fruition...............yet.  (There's always hope!)  Oh, and there will be a star for the topper.

I am really pleased with how this came out.  It kind of reminds me of some of the metalwork that I've seen coming out of Central and South America.  

HWNSNBP has some birch branches that I think would be great for bases for these.  

I can't wait to make a whole forest of them.  

I hope my friends at the picnic will be okay with this project for our theme this week.  I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone has come up with.  You know you can join in at anytime if you like.  Our next theme due two weeks from now is GOODBYE AUTUMN.  (News flash - our autumn here in NJ is going to be winter much sooner than anticipated with snow forecast for this Thursday....... and I haven't even gotten out my Snow Day Wand yet!)

Edited to add Scribble Picnic Link

Jingle Belles - Mele Kalikimaka

I have been purposely staying out of craft stores because my "stash" at home is more than well stocked, however, I was in need of something in particular and found myself once again wandering the aisles checking out all the "new" stuff that I hadn't seen and this paper with the pineapples was so noisy (you know how something screams to you in a store, like the Oreo's you don't need to eat or the shoes that pinch but they look cool and they talk you into buying them anyway) that I had to buy it - sale or no sale price.  And it struck me, as I was already adding it to my basket, that this might be perfect for this fortnight's Jingle Belle challenge, except a pineapple is not a flower.  But it came home with me nonetheless and I made it work (or so I like to believe). 

I had a totally different flower in mind for this, but after I spent way too much time die cutting them with all their little bits, they looked way too busy. So I grabbed this poinsettia from Ink on 3 and embossed them in gold.  The leaves are actually the tops of a pineapple stamp that I had that I also embossed in gold to mimic what is on the background paper.  You can see from the photo below that there is some sparkle to this and also that the flowers, leaves, and sentiment are raised to give it more dimension.  

Now I have to figure out who is going to have a pineapply good Christmas this year!

I have one more idea for a card for this challenge - something again a little out there - let's see if I get it done in time!

Please mosey on over to the Jingle Belles blog to see the gorgeous floral creations for this challenge.  You won't be disappointed!

Happy 60th Birthday, Get Well, and a Wedding Card Too

The last of our Table 7 gang celebrated her 60th birthday the end of October.  This was the envelope for the card I made.

Once again, the seasonal theme for our group.  Each of these seasons is a separate die but I chose to keep them together in a square format, backing each season with an appropriate color.  You can't tell from the picture, but the sentiment "Celebrate" is die cut from a wood veneer sheet and painted with bronze glimmer paint.

A co-worker of HWNSNBP's recently had some neck surgery.  I thought this sentiment was appropriate and stuck with the fall theme.  

Inside.

And lastly, another wedding card for Rachel using the colors of the Philadelphia Eagles - favorites of the bride and groom.

Time to Fall Back

The fall colors have certainly taken over this week.  The trees here are in their full splendor.  HWNSNBP is gathering/blowing/tractoring the leaves on a daily basis. We have leaf pickup in our town but you have to get them to the curb and with a little over an acre and many trees it's almost a full-time job.  Thankfully they come by more than once to "suck them up" in one of those large vacuum machines.  They won't be sucking these up though.

I used most of them for a bunch of these little reminders to some of my best buds.

I had a minor set back getting these out because I was enclosing a little giftee with them and planned to use these padded envelopes but alas, they were not wide enough for the cards!

So I checked through my stash and found some of these 5 x 7 yellow envies which would fit the enclosure and the card but first I embossed some more leaves on the front side.

Before I go, let me share a birthday card that I made for a friend's November birthday.  You know I save my scraps and I was happy to find this scrap of white cardstock that I had used to cut out some of those large oak leaves oh, about a month ago.  There was a scrap of Bermuda Bay cardstock near it and I really liked the combo, so I used that color for my card base.  I die cut the skeletonized leaves in a burnt orange and also did the same with the sentiment.  I still had some of those smaller leaves left so I used a few.  The last addition was the strip of sunny yellow at the top.  

And I think I promised pictures of the little guy in his Halloween costume.  He wanted to be a firefighter with a fire engine.  He and his mom stopped by the local firehouse to take a picture and as luck would have it the truck was outside.

One of the "real" firefighters saw them and asked if he would like to see the truck up close.  Thank you Mr. Firefighter!

And those lights even lit up to do a little Trick or Treating!

Don't forget to turn your clock back!  Enjoy that extra hour of sleep.