Thankful

It’s time for a new challenge over at Try it on Tuesday and our theme for the next two weeks is Thankful.

This could be a thank you card, harvest festival, Thanksgiving or anything that you are thankful for. For more inspiration please take a look at the amazing creations from my Design Team teamies over at Try it on Tuesday.

I’m so thankful to have spent time with our forever friends in Maine and this page was inspired by the beautiful autumnal displays, flowers and birds that I saw in my friend’s garden/yard celebrating Fall and giving thanks to the season – I hope you like it!

To create the background, I stamped most of the stamps from the Bella Rossi stamp set by Prima Marketing onto the page using Hickory Smoke Distress Ink, a script stamp by Kaisercraft using black Archival Ink and a leaf stamp from Crafter’s Companion using Antique Linen, Old Paper and Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I splattered the page with Morocco Memento Ink, by stamping the pad directly onto an acrylic block and using a wet paintbrush to flick the ink onto the page. To dull down the Vintage Photo leaves that I had stamped I covered them with white gesso using a wet wipe blending the colour across the page so it gave it an aged look. I used some washi tape that I had bought on my holiday, for the letters; it had the word “thankful” repeated on it so I cut and placed the individual letters onto the page, which finished the background. Next I cut out two pumpkins from some pumpkin beer packaging that I brought home with me and stuck them in place using a glue stick. They are arranged and layered with some square autumnal images which I cut from a sheet of Autumn design paper by Graphic 45 and also some autumnal leaves and pretty birds which are from a decoupage set by Docrafts. All the pieces are edged with a Dark Sepia Faber-Castell Big Brush marker and stuck in place using either double-sided tape or double-sided foam tape. To finish, I curled the leaves to give more of a 3-D look.

Here is the beautiful Fall welcome that greeted us at my friend’s house (grin!).

There were two pumpkins so I used two on my page.

Their garden/yard is filled with wonderful ornaments, flowers and happiness; this area housed bird feeders and bird boxes and could be seen from the kitchen window …

…which meant we saw some amazing birds; this included black-capped chickadees like the one above, tufted titmouse, yellow-bellied sapsuckers and white-breasted nuthatches. So of course I added birds to my page (grin!).

The yellow flowers and fall colours in their garden were also spectacular so these are included on my page too – Happy Autumn!

As T Stands for Tuesday, I’m sharing the fridge full of beer including the pumpkin beer which was in the box that the pumpkins on my page were cut from. You can find them on the middle shelf and this particular pumpkin beer is from Smuttynose Brewery. We were most impressed that they had a beer fridge and as you can see we had quite a selection of beers to chose from – cheers and Happy T Day!

Challenges

I’m glad I found out about Challenge Blogs, like Try it on Tuesday, as I enjoy taking part, they provide me with inspiration for my pages and are a wonderful way to meet like-minded arty people. So here are the challenges I’m joining today:

I’m pleased to join the lovely Linda from heARTfullyinspiredby Linda, who is hosting the Creature Comforts challenge over at Art Journal Journey with the warm autumnal colours that I used to create this page.

Over at Moo Mania and More the theme is Autumn so I’m pleased to join their challenge with my Fall celebration page.

Inspired by my freind’s garden and fall displays, I’m also joining the Autumn Splendour challenge over at A Vintage Journey with my Art Journalling and Mixed Media Style page.

I’m joining Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge and their Take Flight challenge with the birds on my art journal page, one of which has taken flight (grin!).

I’m pleased to be able to join the Plant-tastic challenge over at Country View Challenges with the autumnal flowers and leaves on my page.

The challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday is Give Thanks! so I’m joining them too with my Thankful art journal page.

Over at Stamps and Stencils their challenge is Spooky Fun with an Autumnal Twist so I’m happy to join them with my autumnal page.

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Here is a list of all the materials used to create this art journal page:

• Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Hickory Smoke, Antique Linen, Old Paper, Vintage Photo)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Tsukineko Memento Ink (Morroco)
• Pébéo White Gesso
• Faber-Castell Big Brush Pitt artist pen (Dark Sepia 175 B)
• Prima Marketing clear stamps (Bella Rossi #587499)
• Kaisercraft clear stamp (Script CS752)
• Crafter’s Companion Clear Stamps Autumn Morning Signature Collection by Sara Davies (Rustling Leaves S-AUT-ST-RUS)
• Washi Tape
• Recycled Packaging from a box of Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale
• Graphic 45 Paper 12×12 sheet (Autumn Collective #4501622)
• Docrafts Anita’s Foiled Decoupage (Autumn Birds ANT169593)
• Pritt Stick
• Stix2 double-sided tape
• The Range double-sided foam tape