Autumn Dinner Party

A few nights ago I went to an autumn dinner party with a few close friends.  The food was fabulous!  We had roast beef, potatoes, acorn squash, and salad with apple pie for dessert.  My favorite was the acorn squash with cranberry.  Here's a picture:

As you can see, we ate a lot of it!  I took one of these home for the next day!

I made a little "welcome autumn" card for everyone at the party:

This is another of the shaker cards I love so much.  I used the usual Paper Trey Ink supplies with background paper from an old Basic Grey line:  Indian Summer.  I filled the shaker with some confetti sequin leaves I found in my stash.  Everything old is new again!  Sequins are all the rage and I have to say I have a fair supply of all kinds that I have collected through the years.  

   About the leaf embellishment:  This is a Hero Arts leaf stamp that I stamped in Clearsnap's Alpine pigment ink and then sprinkled various embossing powders over:  orange from the Stampendous "Painting with Powder" line, a sort of matte gold from Ranger, and an old Ranger Adirondack Terra Cotta color.  I have to say that like sequins, I am glad I have collected a lot of various embossing powders in my day.   And unlike what some say, mine don't seem to go "bad".  

   I hope you like the card!  I liked the food and the company!

Happy Birthday!

I went with friends to the October birthday party at a local senior citizen independent living community.  I made eleven of the above card for the eleven residents who have birthdays in October.
It was fun!   We had ice cream with all the toppings for a treat and everybody liked their cards!  Lots of people shared cards.  I am going back for the November party!
    The card is made from kraft card and decorated with one of the famous Hero Arts cupcakes.  I used an Inkadinkado background stamp for the bottom of the card, using a stamp positioner.  I think I learned about this design in a Hero Arts workshop I took at one time.  Love the design!

Basket Fun

I haven't posted in a while, so I guess it's time to catch up.  Today I'm sharing a picture of a gift basket I made for a church fundraiser.  I had a lot of trouble with this basket, but I like what I ended up with.  I started with the idea of "county fair".  I got this idea from the fun PaperTrey Ink stamps and dies I got a while back and am still enjoying.  I thought I would fill the basket with items portraying fresh vegetables, fruits, and also quilted items.  However, I found it very difficult to obtain items fitting this theme.  Quilting items were especially scarce.  I guess it's not a popular shopping theme right now.  I was so wishing I had signed up for an "autumn" basket!  Autumn theme was everywhere!  (Of course!).  So I persevered, and this is the result:

I decided to make the basket tailored to fit a young girl's idea of fun at a fair.  I found a wonderful stuffed Hello Kitty plush at Hallmark,  She is eating an ice cream cone!  Also, at Hobby Lobby I found this metal sign in the shape of an ice cream cone  It says "Hand Dipped" and you can see it in the back of the basket.  Instead of the quilt I got a colorful Vera Bradley throw, and I filled the rest of the basket with fun things like popcorn, candies, jellies, caramel corn, soda, and even a colorful pincushion and pattern I got at JoAnn's.

The basket did sell, and the church made a few bucks off my fun!  I loved my basket so much I had a hard time parting with it, hoarder that I am!

BTW, I was trying a minute ago to think of the designer, Vera Bradley, for my text above, and I kept thinking of other names in commercial pursuits--Laura Ashley, Anna Griffin, Betty Crocker,  Do these people really exist?  Or are they made up for merchandise lines?  I have no idea!  I do know they have fun stuff, though!