Okay, so this was by FAR the most difficult palette to work with over at The Color Room. Seriously, who actually scraps with these colors on a regular basis? Well, the gals over at TCR say they like to "challenge" us to step outside our comfort zone and think outside the box, and challenge me they did!!!
Here is the palette:
There is not a single person in my household that owns an article of clothing in any of these colors (other than white and grey, but they are more of a "non-color", don't you think?) And I do not decorate in any of these colors (and never will), so there are no just normal "every day living" photos I could use for this palette. Even if I wanted to stage a photo shoot and buy matching t-shirts (hey, don't judge, cuz I'm not the only one who has ever done that), my girls would refuse to wear these colors. So I seriously had to really dig thru my stash of older pics for something to even use. Of course, I could do the old stand-by and change any old pic to black and white (instant match), but I felt that it would be a cop-out this go round and I really needed to give this one a real honest effort. So I used pics of my house right after it was painted and before the rock was applied the bottom half of the lower level and posts. And then there were the patterned papers...
or shall I say "lack of" patterned papers. I went thru every single sheet I own and found only two sheets- one purple (KaiserCraft), one yellow (October Afternoon)- that I could work with. The grey was a bit easier to find (thank goodness) tucked away with my newer American Crafts I got at CHA last year. And so here is my finished page:
close-ups:
I started off the above page totally different than it looks now...and ended up hating everything about it. In fact, I hated it so much that I tore it apart and threw it away. I salvaged a bit of left-over patterned paper and started over using an amazing sketch by Susan Stringfellow from her FAB sketch blog, Sketch Savvy, and everything seemed to just fall into place! She has the BEST sketches and I will definitely be using them ALOT!
SketchSavvy #44 by Susan Stringfellow
Thanks Suz!!!
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Finally Fall!!!
Well, it is finally FALL here out on the high mountain desert, and I am loving it! Granted, I still do not have a single tree on all of my ten acres so that I can see the colors of the leaves change, but the desert still has a beauty all it's own I could never tire of. And I know that we will eventually plant trees someday. :) So in the meantime, I am filling my home on the inside with the colors and textures of fall!
I decorate every year with lots of fall colors, foliage, pumpkins and such, but have never liked decorating with Halloween-specific things because of my daughter. From the time she was about three, Ashley has had this real fear of skeletons and anything scary-looking. She had a bad experience with a really stupid toddler computer game where a scary-looking monster popped up in the middle of the screen when she pushed the wrong button on the keyboard. We had no idea it would scare her so badly. She was terrified to even have the computer in her bedroom after that!
So for years after, anything with a scary-looking face would send her into sobs and screams of terror. In the fall, the Halloween isles at the stores were always something we would have to avoid completely. It doesn't help that I have a deep-seated fear of spiders- plastic, paper, or otherwise (I simply get the heebie-jeebies and start to hyperventilate when I see them). So needless to say, up until recently, our Halloween decor has been fairly tame and is more along the lines of "FALL-themed" with harmless plain pumpkins and richly-hued leaf garlands, rather than toothy grinned Jack-o-lanterns and giant spiders and skeletons ominously hanging from the rafters.
But now that she is older, and sees Halloween for what it is- a fun, candy-filled reason to dress in outlandish outfits that her mother would normally NEVER allow outside of the house, it is all good. The skeletons still bother her a bit, but I have been able to start bringing in more fun "Halloween-themed" decor.
So that little story brings me to today's creation!
I totally and completely stole this idea from Susan Stringfellow (Suz). She has been doing these for her own home for over a year now, and she changes out the "quilted" paper insert every holiday. You can see all of hers on her blog: Creatively Savvy. Well I just LOVE hers, so I decided to make my very own for Halloween! Of course, hers are a bit more elegant, and she can sew in a perfectly straight line, where as mine is a little more folk-artish and my stitches look like a had a little too much "spice" in my apple cider, but it goes with my other decor quite well. Thanks for looking, and again, thanks Suz!!!!
later,
nancy
