Playing Catch Up

Hi, everyone!  So happy that you could visit with me.  I've titled this post Playing Catch Up because I'm trying to juggle my time between Fall gardening and getting the inside of the house ready for Fall.  I love decorating for the seasons and I always put out pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns and all sorts of Halloween things, along with leaves and berries for Fall.  I love doing it.  I got a late start this year because we were away for a week the beginning of the month.  That also put me behind with the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge that Linda Coughlin has going every year.  You can find all the details here.  But I'm on my way and today I'm going to share my second tag.

 

 

As I mentioned last time, I'm doing 5x7 inch pieces that I will eventually put into a book.  When I saw Linda's second tag my eye immediately went to the poinsettia and the checkerboard border.  I knew that would be my inspiration for this second page.  I've been playing with new (to me) products from Lindy's Stamp Gang.  There are sprays, powdered mica paints and embossing powders.  Many of the products are actually two colors combined, a flat and a shimmer.  The embossing powders are basic embossing powder with some iridescence added.   And, the powdered paints have mica in them for shimmer.  I just love all of them.  I don't have many of the colors but I wanted to use them for this piece.  So, I started with one of the powdered paints, called Magicals,  and used a water pen to apply it to the background.  As you can see the color that I used, Ponderosa Pines Olive,  is a yellow green moving into a pine green all with a very light shimmer.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get the shimmer to show in the pictures.  Once that was dry I used a poinsettia background stamp to emboss over the background.  I used Deset Moon Copper Pine embossing powder to emboss it.  I know, the color names are swoon-worthy too! The color is a golden copper with a pine green iridescence.  I then stamped a large poinsettia stamp (can you tell I love poinsettias?)  on watercolor paper with Watering Can Archival Ink and used more of the Magicals to color it.  I didn't have a true red so I used Autumn Maple Crimson and a touch of Red Hot Poker Orange with a water pen.  For the leaves I used the same green as the background with a touch of Tibetan Poppy Teal.  I fussy cut it and sponged some Watering Can Archival on the edges and put a Kaiser Craft Sparkle in the center. 

 

 

Here is a close up. 

 

 

 

 

I mentioned that I also loved the checkerboard border that Linda used.  I had just gotten a new die that I thought would work for this design and allow me to have the checkerboard effect.  I cut it out of gold card stock and applied it to the sides instead of the bottom.  I added the Christmas Carol stamped and embossed on the same gold CS to the bottom and a flourish cut from the gold paper behind the poinsettia. 

 

 

Here are some details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see some of the iridescence of the embossing powder in the detail photos. 

 

 

So, now I'm feeling better about getting caught up with my chores and with my challenge projects.  The challenge is sponsored by Linda's wonderful boutique, The Funkie Junkie Boutique.  Check it out, there are great products at great prices!

 

 

Thank you for visiting with me today.  I really appreciate having you stop by to see what I'm up to.  I hope you have a wonderful day.