Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing you all a blessed and happy Thanksgiving. We were lucky to celebrate Thanksgiving at the Assisted Living with my adopted family on Saturday. Company was awesome as we still have the older relatives and food was good. They even have a teenage boy playing the violin which I thought it was great that he was spending his time with the old folks. Nowadays kids don't like to be with family specially with elderly. Today was another gathering but very small, again my chosen family.

For my card, I loved Altenew's released from last month, I think, because it was all about fall and no flowers. I have nothing against flowers I love flowers but seems like every company is coming out with only flowers and you can only have so many and at some point they're all the same no matter how pretty they are. This release were pumpkins and leaves. The leaves have been on backorder forever but the pumpkins are available and if you took the Cozy Comfort retreat there were more great products again fall theme that match with this release. I picked pumpkin patch bundle which includes embossing folder, simple coloring stencils and stamp set (and three matching word dies which again backorder forever) but not using these, also using also pretty pumpkins layering die set & stylish greeting die set to make cards. For inks decided to play with PinkFresh Studio’s dye inks got them for their last retreat and been trying to play with all colors to get used to their tones as ink wise they're pretty much the same as Altenew's just a bit lighter I think and they have some other colors to complement so you can mix and match.

Started by embossing 6x6 panel then used the stencils to color with berrylicious, coral reef, clementine, marigold, Spanish moss, grassy knoll, citron, lemon whip, sunshine, doe.

at this point decided image it's too full and I can get two cards out of one panel so cut it in half then on another white panel using infinity nested rectangle die set by HA made a frame which glued on top then picked two colors of cardstock that went with the colors I used and die cut it with Cindy Echtinaw Designs Card Creator Perfect Layers A and mounted to an A2 white card base. Then die cut in white the pumpkins and color with same colors but used 3 tones for each pumpkin. For all steams used doe, for the orange card: sunshine, sweet mustard, marigold; mimosa, mango sorbet, fruit punch; peach fuzz, apricot, clementine. 

and for the pink card coral reef, passion fruit, berrylicious; citron, bay leaf, Spanish moss; peach fuzz, apricot, clementine

for the message die cut 3 layers of scraps of brown cardstock. Didn't make give too many cards this year but did gave these cards to the heroes in my city the Algona Police Department.

Feliz Día de los Muertos

Today is Day of the Dead, day to welcome for one day & honor our loved ones that have passed on. Over the last several years there has been lots of things for this holiday so I have been able to do a big Altar to honor my deceased family & friends. 

    

I don't make many cards for this holiday but made these which were so much fun, dies by Spellbinders. One was with the Dancin' girl Day of the Dead and the other Dancin' boy Day of the Dead cutting dies by Spellbinders. Both backgrounds are the same started by masking part of the layer and then with ray of light mix-ables stencil by MFT and distress ink tea dye removed the stencil but kept the mask and without adding ink on brush added more tea dye ink so the background wouldn't be white. With the rosette stencil set & coordinating die cuts by Pinkfresh Studio made bunch with distress inks twisted citron, tumbled glass, wilted violet, milled lavender, carved pumpkin, kitsch flamingo, mustard seed. Glued the rosettes in different layers covering mostly the upper part. Mounted the layer to an A2 black layer and an A2 white card base. Die cut the boy & girl in white and colored with distress inks 

Girl candied apple, fossilized amber, picked raspberry, mermaid lagoon, mowed lawn, spiced marmalade, twisted citron, black soot. Also, added some essential ice clear drops from Pinkfresh Studio

for the mechanism used 5/8" circle punch and MFT spin & slide discs

Boy: black soot, candied apple, tea dye, salvage patina, dusty concord, mustard seed, twisted citron

for the mechanism used 5/8" circle punch and  MFT spin & slide discs