Autumn Splendor

Well I'm tearing through the Chai tea and spicy Yankee Candles. The annual trip to Apple Hill, our regional cluster of apple farms, has been made. And the comfort foods are flying off the stove. Cioppino, chicken noodle soup, penne bolognese, and a couple of McDonalds slip-ups to be sure. But tis the season to craft. It is the time of year when I feel most inspired. Maybe it just seems natural to want to go along with all the natural beauty that is flourishing everywhere.

I wanted to create something that would capture the essence of how I feel at this time of year so I created the following piece:

The page utilizes the Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutant papers, Prima Strawberry Kisses-Berry Splash paper, French Manor Cartridge, and Gypsy Font Cartridge. The gold vine is from Prima and can be found at Michaels. The edges of the page are distressed with Tim Holtz distress ink in Frayed Burlap and Broken China. The page is also sprayed with Tattered Angels gold pearl spray. I accented various elements on the page with Distress Stickles in Antique Linen and Broken China.

I am still working on my Disney Album and have created the following pages with a dash of Halloween spirit:

I utilized my Gypsy and Cricut to cut these images from glitter paper and adhered with 3-D Zots.

The images on this page were cut using the October 31st cricut cartridge and the paper is from the Basic Grey Eerie collection.

Now I have a confession. Many would agree that scrapping and paper crafting can be just as bad and expensive as any other drug addiction. I have recently led my mother and sister astray and have gotten them hooked and spending. I almost feel bad. Anyhoo, take a peek at the gorgeous Autumn/Halloween display they did:

Note the cute banner cut using the Cricut and the black cat on the pumpkin from the Pumpkin Carvings cartridge.

Part of their downfall experience included a day-crop to support breast cancer research. Many of you are familiar with the extremely talented and inspiring Monique Griffith of Monkey Doodle Cricut and are aware that she is fighting like a champ in her own battle with breast cancer. Well an amazing group of women along with Monique's bff and Bling Queen, Wendy Pope Lawrence, put on a fantastic crop to raise money and awareness for breast cancer research. The day was inspiring in so many ways! Check out the new addicts cropping away:

Thank you Monique for being so amazing and showing women everywhere how to be brave and strong!

Another very special highlight of October was the wedding of my dear Aunt and Uncle. It was a beautiful wedding at the lake where my mom, aunt and uncle grew up and it was uniquely them. The bride wore three gorgeous gowns starting with a traditional white dress, then an amazing Chinese dress, then a hot and spicy red satin number that showed all the right moves on the dance floor. The food was great (my new auntie is an amazing professional chef who has worked in the best kitchens in San Francisco). And the music was fantastic. My dad even sang a song for their first dance:

I am so lucky to have these two!

So Long Summer!

When the sunlight starts hitting that angle through my windows that lets me know that it's fall, I get in an entirely different mood. The world just seems more romantic and mysterious. It's automatically time to start making Halloween projects and lighting spicy candles. I have a carton of Oregon chai ready to go in my fridge and rice crispy treats are on the counter. Best of all, the trail that I hike a couple times a week is laden with golden oak leaves and has that grassy berry smell of California.

The best part about hiking in this peaceful place is the weight loss! And it doesn't even feel like work!  But as I soak up the last bits of summer sunshine I can't help but look forward to the rainy, cozy days laden with baking and crafting. 

It is only one week until my Aunt and Uncle's wedding and I have been churning out the last of the wedding album pages.

The first page I created uses a super cute Jolee's hammock embellishment. The papers are by Making Memories, the Hawaii sticker is by Me and My Big Ideas, and the flowers are Prima. I was glad to finally be able to use all this cute stuff that has been sitting around looking good for quite some time.

The next page uses a K & Company paper from the Que Sera Sera stack. The Tree was cut using the Cricut and the Heritage cartridge. I painted over the tree with metallic green acrylic paint and then went over that with shabby shutters distress stickles. The sparrow was cut from the French Manor cartridge and embellished with stickles. The matt was from the DCWV Rockstar matt stack and was distressed and inked around the edges. The frame, blue bird and "romance" die cuts were all from various K & Co die cut packs. And I attached a random silk leaf under the corner of the photo matt.

The last page features Prima Mountain Lilly Vines at the top in Robin's Egg. The paper is Prima titled "Romance" from the Analee collection. The large matt is from K & Company Margo stack and was cut on the Cricut using the French Manor cartridge frame and shadow feature. The Quote reads "All that is good and sweet and true has come to me because of you." The photo matt is from the K & Company Ancestry Matt pad. The crystals are from ZVA creative and the ribbons and lace are scraps from the fabric stores.

Lastly I did a page for my personal album because my Disney pictures have been stacking up. The paper is Prima "Ashton" from the Analee collection. I cut the frame using K & Company Margo stack paper and the French Manor Cricut cartridge Frame feature. The flowers are the second piece of the Prima Mountain Vine Robin's Egg pack. The Crystals are Prima. The Circular matt is from Webster's Pages and the cherry branch was cut using Cricut Lite Botanicals cartridge and the remaining scraps of Margo paper against pink card stock.

I also received my new Tim Holtz embossing folders. Here are swatches that I inked to better reveal the detail:

Clockwise from the upper left quadrant the folders are "Bricked", "Woodgrain", "Damask" and "Regal Flourishes". As promised, the embossing is very deep and when done with thick cardstock and run through the cuttlebug several time can distress the paper and create small tears. I actually like this effect.

So enjoy the cool down and I'll be getting back to you with the final wedding album projects and details on the ceremony and beautiful Bride!

The New Girl

There is a new girl in the house and she is mean, nasty and CUTE!!! Behold.....Fluffers:

Basically, like all of our cats, she was a stray that I brought in and cleaned up. She was absolutely infested with ticks and fleas. So much so that you could part her fur in any part of her body and see 2 or 3 bugs and their eggs. She had two flea dips and a thorough comb through with a flea comb and tweezers and she is as good as new! Here she is checking out my cricut machine:

So this week I made a trip to Michaels and finally got something that my lazy butt should have had ages ago. A Cuttlebug! There was a good sale so I picked up some metallic acrylic paints, D'vine swirls cuttlebug folder, some paper stacks, new Recollections vines and glittered ginko leaves, K & Company alphabet stack and the 12" x 24" K & Company stack that was on clearance. Here is my awesome haul:

The stacks are K & Company Life's Journey and DCWV Travel cardstock stack. I prefer the colors in this stack for fall rather than the actual DCWV autumn stack. They are a little more natural.

This week I cranked out some projects that I am very happy with. The first was a card using the new French Manor Cricut Cartridge. At first I was wishing that there were more layers to the images on this cartridge but once I started working with it I realized that half the fun was laying glitter, jewels and color on. It allows for a lot more creative license than my lazy butt was originally planning on working with but here is what I came up with:

And the inside:

The card feature on the cartridge was perfect and the chandelier, lion, borders and frame were a blast to sparkle up. I'm loving this cartridge more and more. In fact, I also used it to make a page for my Aunt and Uncle's wedding gift album:

I used the border feature and layer from the Eiffel Tower page 68 of the booklet and cut it using the fit to page feature which calculated out to 5". I inked the edges of the piece and adhered it to the blackout piece using Elmer's Craft Bond spray glue which is my go-to for intricate large pieces. I Then matted the photo using the K & Co Ancestry mat pad and used the diamond pieces from the cut out to create a border on all four sides. The mat is also inked using chocolate brown chalk ink. The bling is from Recollections and the die cut metallic flowers are from K & Co Handmade collection. The paper is Moda for Daisy D's in Antique Parchment - Paisley and the cut outs where done using Basic Grey paper in Mandarin Slice from the Marrakesh collection. The smaller flowers are popped up on 3-d Zots as well as the little Butterfly.

Next week I will be having a furry house guest and will also be embarking on an adventure in San Francisco. Also can't wait to share more on the bigger project that I've been working on!

Later Gators!