Getting into the Fall Spirit!

Aloha, all!

     You know by now how much I have held onto Summer 2010 kicking and screaming.  But I've given up, and am now fully into fun fall projects.  I think it was the "Happy Harvest" card from a few days ago that really helped me turn the corner on this.

     For today, I'd like to share a card that I made as part of a recent challenge.  It wasn't really a sketch challenge, though a sketch was provided.  The only challenge was that we had to use an oval as part of our card front.  I thought for sure that I'd be able to figure out how to center the design from this sheet of the Autumn Spice Specialty Designer Series Paper in one of the ovals in the Sizzix Ovals Die.  Not so!  I measured and marked and I still managed not to get the central element centered.  The good news is that I didn't waste any of the paper, because they became the circles (for this and a couple of other projects)!  What I finally ended up doing was cutting a piece of Medium Window Sheet material and tracing around it to get the motif that I wanted to cut.  Then I hand cut the oval and sanded the edge a bit where my cutting was less than perfect (too much!). 

     The ribbon around the Designer Paper Oval is Old Olive Taffeta Ribbon.  I placed Sticky Strip around the back edge of the oval and pleated the ribbon all around and mounted it all on a larger oval of Early Espresso.  I then cut circles from the Designer Paper using the 1-1/4" Circle Punch, and matted each one with a circle cut with the 1-3/8" Circle Punch.   The last oval was the greeting from the Day of Gratitude Stamp Set, punched with the Extra Large Oval Punch and sponged with Cajun Craze ink. 

     The final touch is my current favorite product from Stampin' Up!, the Glimmer Brights Glimmer Brads.  No, there's not a Cajun Craze brad in the set; but the Pumpkin Pie worked just fine, thank you very much!  The whole card is a another piece of the Autumn Spice Paper Set, matted with Old Olive and Cajun Craze, with an accent rectangle of Cajun Craze. 

     If you'd like to try this yourself, here's the sketch I made for this card.  Have fun with it!