Autumn Pumpkins and Leaves…Growing in Unity Blog Hop

I’m so excited to be a part of the Growing in Unity blog hop! It’s been a while since I was able to get into my craft room due to Hurricane Sally and it felt so good to sit at that table and get creative. 

I have two autumn cards to share today. Autumn is my favorite season so it’s really a lot of fun to make cards with these fall colors and things like pumpkins and leaves. The first card uses the Pumpkin Patch border background on kraft cardstock. I stamped part of the stamp using one end and then used watercolors to color it. In recent years, the different colored pumpkins have become very popular and I love them so I brought in some non-traditional colors here. The sentiment is from the September 2019 Sentiment Kit, …change can be beautiful.  I hate to admit it, but I haven’t inked that kit up until now and oh.my.goodness. there is so many great things in it! I can’t wait to play with it more. I had the autumn plaid in my stash and put it on the blue card base at an angle so the plaid would show. I wrapped jute around the kraft cover and tied the bow and then glued it to the base. I felt like it was missing a little something so I added the enamel dots…jury is still out on those though. 

As mentioned above, I love the colors of autumn. One of the things I really miss living here on the Gulf Coast is the colors of the leaves changing. There’s not a lot of trees here that change colors, at least not like they do in other parts of the country, especially the mountains. However, we do have beautiful flowers pretty much year-round so I can’t complain about not having color!

My second card is a slimline card using the beautiful colors of fall and one of my favorite quotes about autumn.  The leaves are from the August 2019 Kit of the Month (another awesome kit FULL of great stamps!). I stamped them and colored them with copics and fussy cut them. The quote is from the same kit and I stamped it on beige card stock and cut it out with a deckle die. I used brown ink to ‘distress’ the edges to give it a more rustic look. I’m a kraft-a-holic and use kraft paper as much or more than I do white so my base is kraft cardstock. I have a ton of this plaid paper left from a project I did last year and it made a great background for the burlap ribbon. I glued it all down and there you have it. I’m way behind on sending cards and these two will help get me back on track. 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you’ll come back. The next stop on the hop is:

https://thewashihorse.blogspot.com

Here’s the full official hopping order: 

 https://inkstainswithroni.blogspot.com/…/growing-in…

 www.htbcreations.com

 https://gatheringgoatfeathers.wordpress.com (you are here)

https://thewashihorse.blogspot.com

Thank you Unity for including me in this hop! It’s been so much fun being a Growing In Unity girl this year. 

“I am so glad I live in world where there are Octobers.” L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Fall Trees

I love autumn…the crisp morning temperatures, the return of football, caramel apples, and pumpkin everything. Scarecrows and hay bales, sweaters and boots. One of my favorite things is watching the leaves turn fabulous shades of orange, yellow, and red. I’m not a fan of raking them when they fall, though. When the sun hits them, they have this amazing glow to them and are just gorgeous. 

Seasonal cards are fun for a general card like hello or thinking of you. I made these a while back using autumn colors for the trees. These stamps are versatile in that you could use them for any season by changing the colors you use for the leaves. I used an autumn plaid paper that I’ve had for a while as a background mat. 

These trees are a stamp from MFT (My Favorite Things) named Modern Trees. I’ve had it a few years and have used it a lot for autumn cards as well as sympathy cards. I used colored Momento inks to stamp it on a beige cardstock. The card base is a cranberry color that I had in my stash. 

This tree blowing in the wind is Blowing Tree by Crackerbox and Suzy. It’s one of four in a series of seasonal trees and all four are great. I stamped it in brown Momento Ink on beige cardstock and colored the leaves with Copic markers. The base is your basic Kraft cardstock. 

I love it when I can use things I like in my card making like these fall trees. I’m not sure who I’ll send them to or what sentiment I might add to them, but they’re ready to be finished up when I need them. 

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.  Albert Camus

Sunflowers and Apples Gnome

I haven’t been able to get into my craft room for a couple of weeks now because of Hurricane Sally and the aftermath of cleaning up. But, I have a few things that I got done right before she decided to make her appearance and I thought I’d share them this week.

With their little pointed hats, hidden eyes, and whimsical beards or braids, they are charming and mischievous at the same time. But no where are they as popular as in the stamping world right now.  Almost every company has at least one set of some sort of gnome. And I love (and want!) them all. 

Gnomes are a big thing right now. Use to be that you saw them only at Christmas but not any more. Now you see them everywhere. There is a commercial on tv with a little ‘travel’ gnome as it’s spokesperson. Sports teams have decked them out in the team colors for fans everywhere to show their allegiance. And you might see a little garden gnome hiding in someone’s yard every once in a while.  

I stumbled upon this cute little Autumn Gnome digital from KLM Designs by accident but as soon as I saw him, I knew I had to have him! That sunflower and those apples spoke to me. I colored him up and cut him out and adhered him to some golden yellow card stock that I had lightly stamped some sunflowers on.  The mat is some fall plaid paper that I’ve had for several years. Normally, I would go with a kraft card base but when I tried it, it sort of dulled the colors so I decided to go with a red card base to keep the colors brighter. 

He’ll be going out later this week to cheer up someone’s mailbox just because. 

Growing In Unity, Day 2, Calendar Fun

Welcome to Day 2 of my week of Growing In Unity! Today, I’m putting aside the cards and doing something a little different. I love finding different ways to use my stamps and giving them more versatility. For several years I’ve participated in a calendar swap with a group of crafty friends. We all choose a month and make 12 of the same design. The friend that organizes it collects them all and then puts them in sets and redistributes them to us. The first year we did this, she really had to recruit hard to get enough people to do it but three years later, we have three groups!  

A lot of Unity stamps are the perfect size for the calendars. You can choose any month and almost be assured to find a stamp that would work for it. I am doing two sets of calendars this year and chose to do September and October. For September, I used the mushrooms from Thanks So Mush which is a recent release. I love these mushrooms! They just have so much character. They look great on a slimline card, too! I stamped three of the four mushrooms directly on the piece I’ve cut for the calendar top and then colored them.  I used some paper from my stash to make a mat behind it and adhered it to the calendar with adhesive tape. 

For the October calendar, I chose one of the very first stamps I got from Unity.  I told y’all yesterday that I’m a sucker for old trucks. I love them and use them as often as I can.  This one is Bountiful Haul and is perfect for fall and Thanksgiving with that hay and those pumpkins in the back. I colored this one with Copics but it’s also a great image to do with watercolors.  I matted it with a fall plaid paper from my stash.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed seeing how I used my stamps on something other than a card. Don’t forget to comment for a chance to win a goody bag from Unity at the end of the week!

Do something creative every day.