AUTUMN is HERE...

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.
- Albert Camus

Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
- Emily Bronte

Winter is an etching,

spring a watercolor,

summer an oil painting

and autumn a mosaic of them all.

- Stanley Horowitz

yes its well and truly here ...

I thought Id start by giving you a dose of inspiration with a few of my favourite quotes/ verses about the Autumn season. These are out of my ever expanding quotes files and really handy on  layouts or Artist trading cards. Autumn is the theme this month and I love the colours the reds oranges, yellows and browns all those rich lovely earthy colours are so wonderful to create with.

For this project,

I chose to use the large SCRAPWARE Doily ...

 

I was lucky enough to have a bunch of Autumn photos of my boys on a camping trip. This was one of those forever moments.  I think I may have muttered the usual "settle down someone s going to get hurt" towards the end when someone did ...but I chose to remember this moment for the boys going crazy throwing leaves and laughing.

They were in heaven under a giant tree that had "snowed", down its beautiful yellow leaves all weekend we camped under it. Every time there was a gust of wind it was an amazing sight to behold as hundred of leaves fluttered and glided through the air. They seemed to dance as twisting and turning through beams of sunshine. When they finally made their way to the ground, they looked like they had created a patchwork blanket  just perfect for a lay down. Or so my eldest Daniel thought laying down closing his eyes not seeing his brothers whispering to bury him under a pile of leaves!!! Id never known what to do with.these photos. No one photo stood out but all of them told them together told a wild story. Then inspiration struck ..."Autumn is a mosaic"!


That's it !!! I would create a mosaic, of sorts! LOL I had just gotten some beautiful Bo Bunny " a gift of love" double sided  papers from the SCRAPTIVATE store. These papers were  patterned on one side plain on the other and they were all perfect Autumn colours.
So I set about creating a template to divide up the inner circle of the doily,
which I then traced onto the push out centre circle of the SCRAPWARE Doily .

I made the sections or what looks like a"spoke" in line with where each leaf shape occurred, around the outside circle. Then carefully cut the pieces out where the photos would be according to my homemade template. 

I returned the center circle to the outside frame and glued some brown card stock down onto the back to hold it together while I painted it .

I used Tim Holtz Crackle paint - "Spiced marmalade", to get that cracked paint/aged effect. Then rubbed some chalk ink pads over the dried cracked paint to match the papers. Then watered down some Tim Holtz - "walnut Stain" and used it as a wash.

In the photo bellow I am demonstrating how I use the stain straight out off the sponge tip on the bottle with a wet brush. Here Ive brushed it on as a wash over the painted chipboard to tone down a bright orange paint. As you can see, I use the back of my hand to take off the excess stain or water.
 My husband says normal people would use a piece of scrap paper!
So I say ...whatever works or is handy at the time!  LOL

The Distress stain soaked  nicely into the cracks highlighting some areas and toning  down some of the brighter colours giving them that antiqued look.
  
When the frame had dried fully I positioned each photograph and trimmed it down to fit each space. I found it easiest to stick the photos individually onto the back of the frame. I also cut some leaves out of a piece of the patterned Bo Bunny papers and stuck them onto the back of the chipboard doily's leaf shapes, as seen below...

I also inked up the SCRAPWARE "Impact" alphabet letters spelling Autumn to create the title.
Threw on some distress stained skeleton leaves and added some strip journaling to finish.

Hope this helps you begin to get all geared up and inspired

just perfect for nothing else but...
 SCRAPBOOKING ...YaY!!!

I have my SCRAPWARE stash
I am ready for scrappy
hibernation  !

:)ready for the long beautiful glorious rainy cold days of winter to come....