Let the Holidays Begin!

I love this time of year and even more than that I love the beginning of the holiday season. To me, November kicks off the holidays as I get excited for Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for and it reminds me to get out there and help others in need. I started a food drive at our church for a local outreach and had the joy of dropping off the food to a downtown Denver ministry that helps the homeless in the area. It is called Urban Outreach and they do so much to help people on the streets. We'll be going next weekend to hand out the food that was donated. I think it's a great experience for me but also for my boys to step out their tiny world and see some of the rougher stuff in life.

Anyway, anyhow, anyhoo.... I made a Thanksgiving card and plan on making a bunch more. I got the color inspiration that I needed from our friends over at Play Date Cafe. Aren't these colors wonderful?

Here is my take on the color challenge:

I made this card with lots of layers. I distressed, crumpled and inked a variety of Tim Holtz (TH) papers and then embellished the card with pumpkin colored raffia, crinkle ribbon, satin cream ribbon and a TH stick pin. What I liked about the TH papers is that there was a page filled with thanksgiving recipes and I picked the pumpkin pie one and paired it with the pumpkin picture. Just love little details like that.

Off to enjoy a fun weekend! Thanks for stopping by.

Update in Shop!

Autumn is officially here! I don't have to put off getting my fall decorations out any longer! It took a lot of self discipline on my part not to drag out my pumpkins and leaves and candles when stuff starting showing up in the stores - in JULY. I don't know about you but I feel like stores are rushing us through the seasons now. I like to celebrate them one at a time! And fall is my favorite!!!!

Anyway, I have a new TWeeK up in my shop, WinterBerry Glen. It is a pillow box set with autumn in mind. Pumpkins and leaves make this a kit that you can use the next few months for lots of gift giving ideas.

Here is a pic of my pumpkin pillow boxes all done up. Each kit comes with supplies to make cute gift packaging for 5 gift boxes.

There are also two different styles of pumpkins and buttons to choose from to make it mixy matchy. I am going to be giving these out right before Thanksgiving break to my little guy's teachers. I also think that they will make really cool place settings at our Thanksgiving dinner. I can write each person's name on the pumpkin and inside I can tuck some little treats.

I also sell the pillow boxes by themselves to be jazzed up for any type of gift giving.

Thanks for stopping by!

Final Post for Tonight!

Whew! I feel like I am on the home stretch of a blogging marathon. I usually do a post or two over the course of a week... but I'm on my third one for the night!

This last card that I made combined two more challenges. One is from the folks at CAS-ual Fridays and the other is from Sassy Lil' Sketches. Both were a blast to use!!! For CAS-ual Fridays CFC24 I had to make a halloween card without using the color Orange. Seriously?!!! okay, I always like how OTHER people can think of non-traditional color schemes for holidays. Me, however?! I'm hopelessly traditional.

I tried, folks. Really I tried. Not including orange was bad enough but I couldn't think of any other colors that looked right to me other than purple and black and charcoal and green.
The second part to my card is the lovely sketch SS0S8 at Sassy Lil' Sketches. Sometimes that is half the battle right there coming up with a LO for a card... and with creative minds over at SLS they did some of the work for me. I took the sketch and turned it on its side. I framed the tree silhouette with a piece of burlap for texture. I used some cream tulle, a stitched felt pumpkin with metal flower doodad, and some stitched leaves to add a little more femininity to the focal point. And that's it from me for one night!

Have a great evening!

PS. I found out that it wasn't too late to enter the Paper Issues 31 Days of Halloween. So I did! Hop over there to see some amazing projects for Halloween.

Vintage Autumn Pumpkin Card

I just thought you'd like to see what is going on at my Etsy shop. I've been loving the cooler temperatures this week here in Colorado. I don't know about your neck of the woods but over here fall comes early and doesn't last very long. Already it is down to 40 degrees at night so it won't be much longer before our trees and plants start to winter over.

So because of that I've been making some fun fall cards. Here is one that I made using a die cut label and distressing it until it looked like an old weathered barn door. To do that I painted it with dark brown acrylic paint, added some crackle paint glaze, painted it again with a cream acrylic paint, and then distressed it with some ink.

I used a stamp from BoBunny to make my own background on the paprika colored cardstock. I distressed it with some ink from Tim Holtz. I used an embossing folder to give some texture to the Harvest Gold (PTI) cardstock that I matted behind my pumpkin cutout. I distressed it with some vintage photo ink (TH) and added some copper Stickles to make the swirly pattern pop out.

I sewed a button onto some fabric leaves and adhered those to the label. I also wrapped some stain Harvest Gold (PTI)  ribbon to the label and tucked a mini tag onto it with some twine and a tiny attacher. The sentiment is from PTI's Gratitude Journal.

Thanks for looking. I hope you are enjoying some great fall weather wherever you call home!