Happy Fall Y'all!

Okay - I can finally reveal my camp projects. We had fun yesterday, and I think my girls enjoyed the fall projects. This first one is a SCS challenge for a criss-cross card. This one is really fun. A note on fall before we start. Starbucks busted out with the Pumpkin Spice Latte in August. Hmm. Then I went to Hobby Lobby (shh... sometimes I go. Don't tell anyone) and they have skipped right over Halloween and Thanksgiving, and it's all Christmas all the time there! What the heck? How does this all happen earlier and earlier this year? I feel like I should be buying up Easter baskets and Fourth of July fireworks - surely I'm late preparing for those two!!!

I walked 12.5 miles today. I promise these two things are related - wait for it. Last fall (actual fall, not August) I did the Susan Komen 3-Day walk - 60 miles! It was 20 miles a day for 3 days. It was a great experience and I raised more than $2400 for breast cancer research. In training for that event, I accustomed myself to extremely long walks (stomps, as I call them) and it's something I really love. Solitude, my Ipod - a few hours where I don't think about work or have to clean anything. it's nice. Anyway, this morning, I almost died. IT'S LIKE 8 BILLION DEGREES HERE!! Actually, the real problem is the humidity. I think that I am growing gills. You can barely take a breath without feeling like you're drowning. So, my core temperature was about 130 when I got home from this monster stomp! I think I have had every beverage in our house! All that to say it's really hard to get jazzed about a pumpkin spice latte, a lovely cable knit sweater, or, God forbid - TINSEL - when a person is sweating like a pregnant mouse in a wool sock! You know what I'm saying??? =)

This lovely number is a complete CASE - the paper piecing just makes me smile every time I see it. Whatever the dementia I have about modifying pumpkins until they are completely unnatural and unrecognizable as products of nature is totally indulged in this card. What (besides a blue pumpkin) is sweeter than a green spotty pumpkin?

This card is lifted from my lovely and talented downline, Chriss, whose layering and cutting just blow my mind. I wasn't that wild about this hostess set until I saw what she did with it. She always adds a 3D touch that I can't come up with on my own, and this cutout out the top layer really adds elegance to what starts out as a more casual image I think. Bravo Chriss - and thanks for the idea!!! (You guys need to visit her gallery from my blog links - it's amazing!)

Finally - I made this little treat bag based on our make & take from convention. What's cool about this is the DSP is sturdy enough to make a treat container. Plus it's automatically pretty on the inside. I just love the patterns they used for the Halloween papers also. I let my girls pick which one they wanted to use - all of them look great with this layout. I used Only Orange craft ink on the On Board Blossoms accent for the front. The hole you punch in the front is 1 3/8, then the bat is punched with the 1 1/4 and stuck on through the front. Adhere black cardstock from the inside of the bag with dimensionals to give a 3D shadowbox look.

I'm hoping to post some more this afternoon. I'd like to do a Beate challenge and some other fun stuff, so come back now, you hear?

PS - thanks for stopping by! =)