Fabulous Fall

Hi!  Fall is my favorite season!  I love the crisp air and the beautiful painted landscape of yellows, oranges, reds and brown.  Ginny is hosting the challenge at The Funkie Junkie Boutique Challenge this time and she has challenged us to be inspired by Fabulous Fall!  Here is how she describes the challenge:

"It's the wonderful season where the leaves are changing and the air is crisp and our thoughts turn to pumpkin spice everything.  For this challenge create a Fall inspired project."

I just love playing with leaves.  I created a series of leaf inspired ATC's. 

For my first couple I started with some Silver Embossing Paste and the Leaves Stencil.  I always think of the glorious leaves falling in Autumn!

This one and the next one started with a silver embossing paste on white cardstock.  I heat set this one and kept heating until the paste started to bubble and give it a little extra texture. I added a few drops of glue and a few glass beads for effect.

The background is the new Dylusions ink spray melted chocolate. It has a beautiful sheen and looks like copper. I finished with a remnant rub-on.

For this one I used the silver embossing paste through the mini leaves stencil. While it was wet I dropped a bunch of the glass beads all over the embossed surface.  I pushed them into the embossing paste and let them dry.

After they were dry I rubbed off some of the glass beads to leave pockmarks!  I love how it turned out!  I then sprayed the entire ATC with the distress oxide Iced Spruce spray.  (Still no Hickory Smoke in the house!).  I finished with a splatter of white paint.  This is because we had 3 inches of snow on Halloween!  Our poor fall leaves were buried in snow and ice. :)

The next couple of ATCs are more traditional in colors for Fall.

For this one I used the layering stencil but used the clear crackle paint over a sprayed background.  It gave a soft effect which I amped up with a little white gel pen.  The main leaf is sponged with a mix of dye inks and then painted with the same crackle paint.  I added a remnant rub-on and a few mica flakes and glitter. 

The tiny toadstools popped up on my next ATC. 

The background is sponged with versamark over the stencil and then clear embossed to keep the leaves white.  Then sponged over with reds, orange, and yellow dye inks.  The leaves were coordinated with the background and a few little toadstools popped up in the midst.

Finally some bits and pieces from my Saturday showcase made it into my last ATC.

I used some of the blank media tape to create a strip on one side and some vellum and crochet vellum pieces on the other.  A bit of Iced Spruce splattering on the background and my leaves with a slight sponging of brown around the edges gave definition. 

I think this one was a tie for my favorite with the silver leaves ATC!  I hope this has you inspired to share your Fabulous Fall art with us at the challenge.  The winner will earn a chance to be a Guest Designer at a future date at The Funkie Junkie Boutique blog, and everyone who enters and follows the rules will go into the draw for the chance to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique. There are also Top 3 Badges for three additional outstanding entries, chosen by the Design Team.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz


Products:
Ranger Mini Layering Stencils - Set 22
Dylusions Ink Spray - Melted Chocolate Spray
Sizzix Tim Holtz Chapter 2 Crochet
Stampers Anonymous - Tiny Toadstools
Ranger Tim Holtz Layering Stencil Nordic
Wendy Vecchi - Silver Embossing Paste 
Prima Glass Beads 
Sizzix Fall Foliage
Crackle Paint
Ranger Distress Sprays Inks - Ground Espresso Wild Honey
Ranger Distress Inks - Wild Honey, Fossilized Amber, Festive Berries, Ground Espresso
Dina Wakley White Paint
Tim Holtz Remnant Rub-Ons Tiny Text
Ice Resin Glitter Shards Sterling (I substituted this for the glitter on my ATC)
Distress Mica Flakes
Ranger Distress Glitter
White Gel Pen
Stampers Anonymous -  Stuff to Say
Idea-Ology Metallic Quotes

Fall Splendor

Hello!  I am back with some pretty fall colors for the To Everything There is a Season   challenge at Frilly and Funkie!

The very creative and talented Kathy is the host of the latest challenge on the Frilly and Funkie Blog. She describes the challenge as:  "To Everything There Is a Season." Fall is one of the most beautiful seasons of the year. Brilliant leaves, fall flowers, crisp blue skies, and migrating geese fill the season with a sense of wonder and anticipation. You're invited to create a vintage or shabby chic project that captures the beauty of fall. You can make a card, a tag, share a journal entry or any kind of project you desire. Just be sure to create it in the shabby chic or vintage style and be sure to use fall (not Halloween) images and colors.

I am a big fan of fall and I love playing with leaves and the colors of the fall leaves.  It had me creating a layered canvas full of yellow, red, burgandy, and orange. 

The canvas started with a coat of gesso on the bottom.  After that dried I came back in with the leaf stencil and embossing paste and randomly added areas of white embossing paste. While that was wet I added color with sprays misted and dripped all over the embossed backgorund to add variation in the colors. I even placed the die cut leaves on the canvas while misting to spray my leaves and leave shadows on the canvas. 

After that dried I stamped and stenciled die cut leaves using various stamps and and colors.  I then layered them into the background using decoupage (I used fast finish) but you could use watered down glue. 

I then stamped and misted on tissue paper which was also layered onto the background to give another dimension of texture.  After all that was done and dried the canvas sat for awhile as I contemplated what next.  

I decided to create another layer of bigger leaves died and embossed to coordinate behind a few paper dolls and their dog as the focal point.  I added the fun key and sentiment and then I was done. 

I hope this inspires you to get out your fall leaves, colors and images and join us in the fun! 

The team will choose their top four picks with the winner being invited to join us in a Guest DT spot here at Frilly and Funkie and the next three will receive badges to display on their blogs. Everyone who enters and follows the rules will be entered into the draw to have the chance to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique

Suzz

Sizzix Alterations - Mini Tattered Leaves Movers & Shapers by Tim Holtz	Sizzix Alterations Tim Holtz Tattered Leaves Die	Sizzix® Thinlits Die Set 14PK - Fall Foliage by Tim Holtz	Tim Holtz Layering Stencil Autumn	Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste - White
Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Spray Stain - Fossilized Amber	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Aged Mahogany	Ranger Tim Holtz Ground Espresso Distress Spray Stain	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Rusty Hinge	Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black Pad #3
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Paper Dolls Ancestors	Tim Holtz Ideaology Clippings Stickers TH93583	Metal Keys for Scrapbooking and Mixed Media	Prima Marketing Mechanicals: Mini Stars 36pc. (March Pre-order)	Carabelle Cling Stamp - Collage Texte et Negatif
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Rubber Stamps - Regions Beyond CMS274	$23.95 Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Rubber Stamps - Documents	Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Layering Stencils - Eye Chart	Carabelle Embossing Folder - Texte Grunge	Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad - Rusty Hinge
Ranger Tim Holtz Ground Espresso Distress Ink Pad	Rayon Seam Binding	Prima Art Basics - Heavy Gesso - White 17 fl. oz. (March Pre-Order)

Fall Leaves

Hi!  I am thrilled today to share that I am guest designing at the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge this month. They have a beautiful inspiration board full of beautiful fall colors for the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #30. 

Which had me thinking of autumn colors, leaves and how quickly the weather changes from warm summer to chilly evenings.

I laid down a layer of crackle embossing paste using the beautiful leaves layering stencil from Tim Holtz.  After it dried I ended up laying into some leftover inky spray on my craft mat. I got some beautiful speckling and color absorbed into the crackle.

I then decided to highlight the leaves and added a bit of shadowing with a watercolor pencil.  This helped make the leaves stand out.

It was beautiful as is but I decided a series of vellum butterflies embossed and splattered with the same colors would be the accent to highlight the tag.

Here is the lovely inspiration photo:

For all the details of the challenge and to join in on the fun pop over to the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #30.

Suzz

Gnarled and Twisted

Good Morning!  I am happy to say I am Guest Designing today at Frilly and Funkie Challenge Blog 
  in their Autumn Splendor challenge.   Simply create a vintage or shabby chic project using the rich colors of autumn, and remember to include an autumn leaf somewhere in your project.  The challenge is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

I was inspired to create Halloween Decor to set out in my craft room.

I love fall leaves and knew I wanted to cut some from papers and this idea of creating a tree with an old branch popped into my head.

I started with an old wooden spool for my base.

I stuck the branch into the spool.  I had to use a glue gun which I rarely do because I wanted to make sure it would hold and dry quickly.

I then created the leaves using the Tim Holtz Halloween papers and focused on cutting out the faces in the leaves.

I decorated the spool with papers and stickers.  I added a little moss and a sign on the top. 

For all the details of the challenge hop over to the Frilly and Funkie Challenge blog and play along! 


Suzz

Falling Leaves

 Hi all and welcome to another week of the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge. This week the challenge is autumn.  You can be inspired by all kinds of things including the fall colors, foliage or activities enjoyed during the fall!

 I took my inspiration from the fall leaves.  I have am seriously in love with leaves and trees and they always inspire me to create.  This time I created a journal page with layering of leaves and even tiny vignettes of trees and sentiments about trees built into the leaves.

 In the fall there are times after the rain falls that you will find that the leaves have left a shadow imprint on the concrete.  This effect always fascinates me and makes me want to create something similar.  My attempt to replicate that is to use a bunch of die cut leaves:

Scatter them onto my journal page and spray with fall colors to leave their shadows behind.

Our puppy was even interested in what I was working on. I mixed in orange, yellow, red and a touch of gray / green in the sprays. I had applied gesso on the pages first.

I then traced the outline of the leaves in various areas using my watercolor pencils and sponged in some colors using the reverse mask from where I cut my leaves from.  I stamped some of the trees and sentiments inside the leaves.  I came back with the chicken wire to give the touches in the background.  Finally I took all the dark pattern paper leaves and added them in the background.

Products:  Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Pumice, Fossilized Amber, Fired Brick, Iced Spruce, Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Cargo , Darkroom Door - Chicken Wire, Watercolor Pencil, Water Brush, Art Journal,  Black Marker, Gesso,  Stampendous Leaf Die Set,   Sizzix Fall Foliage Thinlits, DarkRoom Door  Trees


As always Simon Says Stamp will be giving away $50 voucher to shop at the fabulous Simon Says Stamp Store

So now it's YOUR turn, come play along and show us what inspires you about Autumn! You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in

Suzz

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If you use instagram add  #sssmchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there too!