Fall Is When Nature Turns To Gold

I have been stuck on making fall cards pretty much all month long. I guess that could be because I love it when the trees turn to their rich fall colors and cover the ground in their finery.
Any way here is my last card this month for Viva La Verve Sketch Challenge:

 

Here is the sketch we had to use:

 

Loved how fast it was to work with this sketch. I made the leaf background by taking a small leaf stamp and stamping it multiple times in several different colors of distress inks: Fired Brick, Vintage Photo, Peeled Paint, Scattered Straw, Spiced Marmalade and Rusty Hinge.

I then cut it in 3/4" strips and adhered the strips to the dark red cardstock then adhered it to the kraft cardstock and then to the base of green cardstock. I used twine to keep to the rustic feel I wanted.

I stamped the sentiment onto kraft cardstock with Black Tuxedo Memento Ink and adhered it with pop up dots. It really looks great on the kraft but I took the photo at night so the photo doesn't do it justice.
 If you would like to see more of my fall cards you can visit my Splitcoast Gallery
Thanks so much for dropping by and I hope you enjoyed your visit.
 Teresa

Note Card Set

Hello! Been having issues with my blog. It won't let me post and a few other things. Any way here is a set of note cards that I made to put in a tea basket that I am making up for a fundraiser. 

I used this sketch from Seize the Sketch

The stamps and dies are all Papertrey Ink. I used Picked Raspberry Distress Ink on this card. The cards are all alike. I just changed the color on each card.

I used Spiced Marmalade DI on the tea cup on this card. The white cardstock was embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.

Dusty Concord DI was used on this teacup. I also distressed the edges of the black cardstock

Peeled Paint DI was used on this teacup and I cut up gemstone flourishes to use as the steam on each cup. I have been hoarding these flourishes for a long time waiting for the perfect project to use them on.

I am also entering this card set int the A Blog Named Hero's Game. Match. Set. Challenge

 and in the ColourQ Challenge #208.

Well I hope my blog will continue to work. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Teresa

October Day

Ok, I just couldn't put it off any longer. I finally broke down and made a card for fall. Have you noticed that a lot of the color challenges are using fall colors and everyone seems to be making cards for the fall holidays?
So here is my first inky fall card:

I love that it turned out to be a one layer card, all stamps and ink not even any paper other than the cardbase. This is something I usually have a hard time accomplishing but this card came together supper fast. I believe it was because of the awesome sketch from Clean and Simple Sketch Challenge #256 that made it come together so easily.

   

I paired the sketch with the color challenge over at Pals Parper Arts Color Challenge #170:

 I thought this was an unusual color combination so I decided to give it a try.

What drew me to the sketch was the dots. I wanted to use bubble wrap to mimic the dots. As you can see I changed things up a bit with the sketch. I have used bubble wrap once before on this card with paint but this time around I used an ink pad to color the bubble wrap.

 After stamping the first set of dots towards the bottom right corner I decided to use the bubble wrap again in the upper left corner and stamped the sentiment in the middle of the stamped dots and left out the strip down the left side. I inked up the bubble wrap with VersaMark Watermark ink then inked it directly from the ink pad with Faded Jeans Distress Ink which I used for the Midnight Muse.

I used a trio of leaf small leaf stamps to replace the stars in the sketch and stamped them randomly around the sentiment and the dots. I used Mustard Seed DI for the Crushed Curry and two shades of brown, Vintage Photo and Tea Dye DI for the Early Expresso.

For a couple of  the leaves I first inked the stamp with the Mustard Seed then rolled the edges of the stamp in the Vintage Photo before stamping it to get the two colors. 

I then inked all around the card with Faded Jeans DI and the edges with Vintage Photo to finish off the card.

So now I am in a fall mood! LOL I guess I just had to make a card to get into the fall season.

How about you? Are you ready for fall?

Teresa

Bundle of Joy

Good morning and I hope your weekend is off to a good start!
It is rare that I need a baby card but my husbands nephew and wife just had a sweet baby girl.
Here is what I came up with:

 For the design of the card I used the Deconstructed Sketch #117

 

I really love how the left corners are rounded. The only change I made was I just moved the wide border strip over to the very left side edge of the card and made it a bit narrower.

When I came across the inspiration photo for ColourQ's # 205 Challenge for this week I fell in love with those boots!

I think the colors made for a sweet baby card too. For Island Indigo I used Ocean Depth Versa Magic ink, Picked Raspberry Distress ink for Raspberry Ripple and Spun Sugar DI for Regal Rose.

 I just love the bit of ribbon sticking out from the button that I threaded twine from The Twinery through. I just can't seem to leave empty holes in buttons.
And since I used a button I am also entering this card in the A Blog Named Hero Button It Challenge #31

All you have to do is add one button or as many as you would like to your new project or card.

 The booties are the only baby stamp I have so I pulled it out and inked it up with VersaMark watermark ink then with Picked Raspberry and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I stamped it on white cardstock and colored the booties in with Spun Sugar and a bit of Picked Raspberry before cutting them out.

The pattern paper and cardstock is all from Creative Memories and so is the scalloped border. I wrapped a bit more twine from The Twinery around the border to give it a more finished look. I embossed the light pink cardstock with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and sprayed it with Perfect Pearls for a little sparkle.

I did have to piece together the sentiment from three different stamp sets. The "congratulations " so from an Hero Arts set and the "On Your" is from PTI's Tea for Two Additions and the Bundle of Joy is from PTI's Mega Mixed Messages. The latter is my go to stamp set. I use it so much. I thought about just using the computer to type out the sentiment but I wanted to use the Ocean Depth ink instead of black for a softer look.
Well, there you have it! My baby card for the year. I think I really should invest in a stamp set for babies. Any suggestions?

Teresa

A September Day

On Our Beautiful World they want to see what September is like for you. Go take a peek and you will see what the month of September is like all around the world!

 This is how our backyard looks from the kitchen window on this September day:

It is raining and has been raining off and on for the last few days but has cleared up in the afternoon. We have also been having thunder which is not all the common here. The weather people have promised us that the beautiful summer weather is suppose to return next week. Yeah! I'm not quite ready to give up summer.

Yesterday evening I went out the back door and saw this perfect bloom laying on the porch and thought how pretty it looked. Then I noticed how big my hanging baskets had grown over the long summer days.

 I adore these  fuchsia blooms. This fuchsia survived the winter but it took until August before it bloomed.

Now it is covered in gorgeous blooms. Very much worth the wait!

 Here is the plant that the single bloom on the porch came from.

 This is a purple one just like the red one above.

And here is one of the three hanging baskets on the back porch. It doesn't have as many blooms as it did just a week ago. I think it isn't getting as much sun now that fall is fast approaching. It has grown at least twice as big since I first put it up.

As much as I love summer and all the beautiful summer blooms I do look forward to the beautiful fall colors and the cool crisp mornings. How about you? Are you ready for fall yet?

Enjoy your weekend!

Teresa

Fun at the Beach

Whew! I'm finally back. We left Thursday to camp at  Pacific Beach over the Labor Day Weekend and arrived back homw safe and sound late Monday afternoon.

We unpacked the truck and trailer right away and everything was put away, and the mountain of laundry was started. Tuesday laundry was finished and put back in the trailer. Then I started the task of cleaning up the trailer from front to back so it's all ready to go for the next time before we put it back in storage. That sounds so sad "back in storage.".

I wish we could keep it here at the house but we just don't have the room. I also think we should name our sweet home away from home instead of just calling it "the trailer" because we always have such a fun time when we travel in it and it makes camping (if you can call it "camping") so comfortable. Any name ideas?

We had a great time with friends, the food was delicious, and the weather was glorious. Although it did start out with rain, as it poured on us pretty much the whole time we were driving there but by the time we arrived at the campground it had stopped and didn't rain again until sometime during Sunday night.

 

For some reason I always sleep so well when we camp at the beach. I don't know if it from the sound of the surf lulling me to sleep or all the exercise we get playing in the ocean and walking the beach.

 Nanook had fun playing fetch in the ocean with his dog friend, Lena. Whenever he swims you would swear he was a pup instead of a 12 year old dog. He loves the water so much. The waves don't even bother him anymore. When we first would bring him to the ocean it would take him a few seconds to jump in but now he runs right in without a second thought. Ha! Right now Nanook is under my feet as I sit here typing this at the desk because we are having some thunder. He IS a big chicken when it comes to loud noises and thunder is one of those. He will take on the ocean but he is inside before we even know the thunder is coming. :)

 That little black dot behind Nanook is Lena!

 Coming back out with his beloved tennis ball so it can be thrown again. My arm was sore from throwing the tennis ball all afternoon.

Let me tell you these two pups were tired and ready for bed early every night while camping.

 Saturday is the big Tug-of-War event between Moclips and Pacific Beach. Let me tell you they take this stuff seriously! The rope is marked with a red ribbon in the middle and is laid across the piece of wood you can see in the photo above then is measured equally from the middle on both sides and marked with white ribbons. So whichever side gets their white ribbon across the middle first is declared the winner. Each side  digs trenches to help keep their footing. Like I said they take this very serious.

 Here is the Moclips side. This year they had to have women and children help otherwise they wouldn't have had enough people.  

 Here is the Pacific Beach side. A bunch of young men on their side.

 Everything is in place and it's about to begin.

Pacific Beach looked strong at the beginning and were making progress then something happened and Moclips was beginning to to make progress. Then neither one was going anywhere, the crowd went wild each person cheering for their side. Then Moclips won! (I think they gained a couple of extra people during the pulling.) This was an upset for sure! I know the last two years we have been watching PB has won. I heard that Moclips continued celebrating their win way into the evening that night.

 After the Tug-of-War we went back to fly kites, play in the ocean and just sit and relax on the beach soaking it all in.

 That evening after a pot luck dinner with the whole group we sat around and watch a volleyball game and
the beautiful sunset.

It was a gorgeous one that night.

 Sunday is the Kelp Parade and this is our group waiting for it to begin.

 I'm not sure what the chickens were all about but there was a cool pirate ship that shots a cannon and scares everybody.

 My husband got a kick out of this float. Duck Dynasty is his favorite show so he loved the slight twist of the name. It's not a big parade but it's fun and they throw lots of candy for the kids and beads.
After the parade we walked down to the little town and wander among the shops and had ice cream before heading back to camp and having a late lunch.

 Here is the flower that we bought at the kite shop. I love how colorful it is

 It was late in the afternoon by the time we made it down to the beach.

 It was another glorious day and everyone was so relaxed and maybe just a little bit sad knowing this was the last time at the beach for this trip.

 The dogs were patiently waiting for someone to throw out the tennis balls.

Wayne, Nanook and I walked the beach all the way to town then walked up to our camp. Here is the last longing look we took of the ocean before heading back to camp for dinner and watching one more sunset which I failed to get a picture of. I just enjoyed it. 

I miss the ocean already.

Teresa