Fall themed contest entires

Here are a couple more cards I submitted to last month's Stampin' Up! contests. I know, I know -- did I seriously think these were contest winning cards? Well, no, but I did think they were cute and they were fall-themed, which is what the contest required. I used stampin' pastels on both cards because I love pastels and because to me pastels lend themselves particularly well to fall-themed cards. This first card is actually a re-working of a card I designed last year. The card base is very vanilla and is edged with stampin' pastels. the background layer is basic brown, colored with pastels stripes. I then used the acorns wheel which, for some inexplicable reason, is on the dormant list, inked it up with versamark and wheeled it across the chocolate chip layer to create this neat pullin' pastels background. I used three different colors of stampin' write markers to create the varied color on the Autumn sentiment, punched it out with the small oval and used pastels on the very vanilla card stock to add more subtle color. I layered it on a large pumpkin pie oval and created a slider with more mustard narrow grosgrain. The acorn is from the Touch of Nature set. It's stamped with basic brown and colored with close to cocoa and more mustard, then punched in three circles which are matted with more mustard, ruby red and old olive larger circles. The card really looked much nicer in real life-- the texture on the chocolate chip layer is so velvety! If you recall, this was right around the time when my camera broke, so this is a scan and it does make the card look so flat. But again, while it may not be a winning card, I do think it's a great fall card.


This was another card I stamped for the fall themed contest. I knew from the start that his card would not win because I used too many different stamp sets. But I still had fun stamping it and giggled when I added the happy harvest sentiment from Loads of Love Accessories. You see, this card is really wishing the squirrel happy harvest, and if you saw the squirrels around our house and how fat and happy they are in the fall when they're having their acorn feast, you'd understand why I would want to make a card for them. They are just too adorable. We have lots of very old oaks on our property, and on some nice fall days it's like a squirrel smorgasbord, with as many as 10 of them happily munching away!



For this card I first created background on the piece of very vanilla card stock with my stampin' pastels using the rainbow background technique. Then I stamped the trees from Lovely as a Tree (I just love that set -- I hope it never ever retires!) and the squirrel from Wildlife Preserve in basic brown ink. I covered a chipboard tag from our On Board Accents and Elements collection with more mustard card stock, stamped it with the leaf from Lovely as a Tree and the sentiment. I colored the leaves with more pastels and even used pastels to color the whisper white narrow grosgrain old olive on one side and ruby red on the other. I made this card just for me (and the squirrels), so it's OK if no one else likes it. It just made me happy!