Toile Invitation

 Each fall, I design an invitation for a Holiday Party for a company out in Henderson, NV. This year, the decorations are going to be red and white toile with gold accents.
I found the gold toile card stock at Michael's and had some stamps. I originally was going to do an overall toile pattern with a stamp, but decided I liked this better.
I am also using sticky back paper to create a label for the back of the envelope. I thought this Spellbinders die had a french look....reminds me of the pulls on french provincial furniture.

 I address the envelopes so I stamped a design on the envelope to frame the address area.
For the inside, I used a portion of the gold toile card stock at the top of the printed invitation. It makes me think of a menu board like a cafe in France would describe their menu for the day.

 

Last year, the theme was hunter green and outdoorsy....I did suede paper, Dreamweaver Stencil, stencil paste and glitter. 

Now that the design for this year is approved, I have 35 of them to make. The hardest part is coming up with the design, but once it does come together and looks nice, it is very rewarding. I love challenges like this! Plus, paying jobs are always nice!

Pickens County, SC

 One of my favorite flea markets is the one on Wednesday morning in Pickens, SC. It is very large and I seem to always find some treasures there. Recently, I took my parents over there and then we decided to explore the area a little. I had noticed a sign for a grist mill on my way home from Pisgah Forest. I did not realize that the mill was right off of Hwy 178. It is called Hagood Mill.

The third weekend of the month, they hold festivals here at the mill. In September, it is Fiddle Music which I would love to hear and in October, Storytelling.

 My parents picked up some walnuts that were on the ground....there were so many of them, you really had to watch where you stepped to prevent a fall!

 From the mill, we traveled up to Twin Falls. There are many falls called Twin Falls. This one was a very comfortable walk and it was quite beautiful.

It was a beautiful autumn day....treasures from the flea market, a nice visit to the mill, a beautiful walk to a waterfalls and a stop at an apple shed on the way home. I love days like this one!

Serendipity Stamps in Watercolor

 I love watercolor and watercolor crayons, so I decided to play with some images from Serendipity Stamps. I have some of the new Faber Castel Gelatos which I need to check out, but these were done with the Faber Castel watercolor crayons, except the last one, which I stamped and then painted. On all the others, the pigment was applied directly to the rubber, it was spritzed and then stamped.

On the snowy areas, I used a paint with a sheen, but it does not show up very well in a photo but looks fantastic in person. I have put some closeups here at the beginning to try to show the sheen. Below, I spattered some of the iridescent paint for the look of snow. What a sweet bunny that is circling the tree!

 I also bought some puff paint the other day to use like Liquid Applique. I want to play with it on some of the images as well but have not tried it.

 This old wagon wheel is one of the best images for this technique ever. Basically, you can color the whole image brown. I did come back in and added a little rust color to the fence post to make it match the paper I had selected to use.
I also used a new embossing folder on this card and the scarecrow, barbed wire and chicken fence. I think these Cuttlebug folders are great. All the die I used are from Spellbinders.

 I cut hexagons to create a quilt look for the scarecrow and then quilted it with the chicken wire pattern, which duplicates the hexagonal shape.

Here are the whole card fronts:

 I also used the little embellishments called Candi. I really like to use these as they are light weight and easy to use and come in so many colors!

 The sky below was solid on the rubber, so I used two shades of blue for a night sky. I added some rhinestones, which are clear crystal in real life (not red like they appear).

 I thought this church building makes a great bookmark....

 Below is the only one not done with crayons. There was so much detail in the image, that I thought it showed up better with ink and then added color with paint.

 I noticed that one of the Christmas postage stamps has a village look. I think it would look great with some of these Serendipity images that have a village look. I have been known to buy a lot of stamps and then just use the one of the four I like with my Christmas cards....figure the Forever stamps that I don't use can go on bills. Of course, I don't mail many bills any more as most of that is done on line, but oh well....it is wonderful when a postage stamp matches the card....and even better when someone notices! LOL!

Paper Quilting

 My other class in North Carolina consisted of projects using paper quilting. It was hard to choose just five projects, but here are the ones we did. First, a patchwork easel card. Below, we used a PATP punch to create an easy card using a purchased notecard.

 Folded star gate card and triore twisted easel card were a couple more. I tried to incorporate different card types in addition to the paper quilting.

Last but not least was a herringbone quilted tie for a man in your life! I made samples of other types of paper quilting also....fun, fun, fun!

Stencil It In...Using Stencils in Paper Crafting

 Here are the projects we did in my recent class in North Carolina. I tried to incorporate different ways of using stencils.
Above, we used adhesive paper and applied two colors of glitter to form the snowflake. Soap was used to allow the brass stencil to be removed from the adhesive paper.

 For the maple leaf, I hand cut a stencil after stamping the image on clear plastic. The stencil allows for ease in coloring and also enables a quick shadow.

 We played with embossing paste and paper piecing on the gift card. The spider web below was created with scratch art board that had been embossed with a brass stencil (Dreamweavers).

 I love torn paper, and below, we created a diorama of the mountains with torn paper.

I have many more ideas, but one has to stop somewhere! LOL!

Autumn at the Cabin

 Allison and Craig are both teachers and have the week of Columbus Day off for fall break. They love to come to the cabin during school break! Jason, Jessica and Jackson were able to join us for the weekend. We always have lots of good food like the apple pie above!

 Jackson loves to be outside and we visit the creek often. Last summer he and I did some wading in the creek but it was a little cold this trip.

 Jackson will turn two soon, so he opened his birthday presents from Clayton early.

 My mother's min pin had puppies and she kept little Moe, below, who looks like a beanie baby in size!

 I love the mist in the morning at the cabin across the street.

 It was very foggy when we went up to the state park to the overlook for photos. Jackson is enjoying his baby black bear!

 Here is the view from the porch. We had a tree come down on the driveway and Jim worked hard to get it moved before the crowd arrived!

 A friend in Chicago sent us a couple of those Giordano's thick pizzas that I love so much....Chicago pizza in the NE Ga mountains....who knew? It has partially been cooked, then frozen and arrives on dry ice. You cook it for about 20 minutes. Delicious! She sent two, so each one made a meal!

 My Dad turned 79 on Sunday and Mom will turn 80 in November. We are often mistaken as sisters! The dog is Ellie, mother of Moe.

 More good food....Sm ores!

 Clayton is still small, but he is very feisty! He will be walking soon and loves to "talk" baby talk. He is very curious and loves to investigate things!

 We visited this waterfall near Lake Rabun. It is one of our favorites!

 While we were out, we stopped at Goats on the Roof, on Highway 441.

 I took some photos of Jackson on this split rail fence. Unfortunately, the poor guy fell and got numerous splinters in his hand. I felt so badly for him!

 Clayton loved climbing up the steps to the loft....reminded me of Jason teaching Allison how to come down the stairs at our house when they were young! It wasn't so much fun for Allison!

 Jackson loves his Aunt Allison. I hope my grand kids can have wonderful relationships with there aunt and uncle as my kids did with my sister and her husband!

With my Dad having Alzheimer's, he leaves home often. My mom has had to call the police to find him several times. I got a Pocket Finder (around his neck) from the Apple store. It is a GPS that can be tracked on an app on a iPhone or ipad. I sure hope it helps find him next time he sets off on a walk. We never know in which direction he has headed, so this will pinpoint where he is as long as he keeps the device on his person.

Allison had a sad experience when she arrived back home as she found that one of her beloved kitties had died while she was gone. Her in-laws had checked on them Thursday, but when she came back home Saturday night, Tiger had been throwing up and died. He wasn't but about 5-6 years old so we don't know what happened. Our pets become our friends and we really miss them when they are gone.

All in all, it was a wonderful week at the cabin! Hope you are enjoying your autumn!