I mean it. You get cards and wildlife pics this time, grin!
But first, an update. I attended two different fairs, but both were bad choices for me. The Gardner people put me so far away from the center of the fair that not even my neighbors could find me. Had I known more about fairs I would have mouthed off and demanded to be moved, but I didn't know that I could do that.
The second fair was the Bolton Fair, an agricultural fair. I was up against $1 inflatable baseball bats. Not a good choice either, although people stopped and looked and oooh'd and aaaaah'd and I heard nothing but praise over my creations. But people were here for the fun and games, not so much for craft items.
Lessons learned. I scouted out more fairs, this time more specifically craft fairs, and I will be setting up at the Westborough Fall Fest on 5 October on the Common and on October 19 at the Sterling Church Fall Craft Fair. Hopefully some of you will stop by and say hi!
I have been BUSY, lots of animals again this year, but I still found a few minutes here and there to craft and keep my sanity.
This first card has a glazed leaf as a focal image. I saw the technique on Splitcoaststampers and of course had to try it out myself. But they used a stamp to make the leaf, and I used a real leaf instead and traced around it. It's a fun thing to do, but you need Utee, a heat gun, cold pressed water color paper, Memento reinkers, and a metallic gold pen. You first thoroughly get the leaf wet, then apply the ink as you like, let the leaf dry or heat dry it, goop it up with embossing glue, apply Utee, melt it, immediately apply a second coat, melt that. let the leaf cool, then apply the gold around the edges.
This is a straightforward easel card, top and bottom backgrounds are embossed, and the top is matted with one of the new Spellbinders Enhancements dies. The flowers, as always, are my own, the two small leaves are hand colored and shaped.
This card was also fun to make. Again, it is a straight easel card. The top insert is a Sizzix embossing folder and I brought out the leaves with a rub-on metallic called Inka Gold from Viva. Here I used Bronze. The rosette is a Tim Holtz, I distressed the edges with ink. The bottom part is a Spellbinders embossing folder and I highlighted the little daisies with ink. The flowers are my own. The center of the rosette shows Ginnie, my female opossum, whom I had overwintered and released this past summer. She was a very gentle animal.
I also got addicted to making Kusudama flower balls and made over a dozen of them. For me, it is late night work while I am waiting for a final feeding, doing this keeps me awake. And I love the results!
And then I got into casting leaves with concrete. You find basic instructions on YouTube, but I believe that I took this to a new level. This is a wild Burdock leaf, not an easy leaf to cast, and I used different colored batches of concrete to achieve this look. This is a large leaf, about 17 inches long. The largest I have cast measures a whopping 20".
Then there were the wildlife adventures, and the year was rich with them. I had discovered that we have a local Audubon Sanctuary in town, so I called to get permission to release wildlife on their site since there is not hunting and my wildlife will find everything they need.
On 19 SeptemberI released my last batch of cottontails. At first they were quite timid, but once they had gotten used to the thick green carpet under their feet they started to run and jump around and finally ran off and into the thicket and were gone. Be safe, little bunnies!
People often think ill of porcupines, but I find them to be very docile and gentle creatures. They don't attack, they use their quills only for defense. A predator must come in contact with he quills which release at the slightest touch. Porcupines can not "throw" quills. This gorgeous young female finally had enough of me and decided to climb a tree to get away from me. That is how I was able to snap this beautiful and rare shot.
My season is by no means over. Round two for squirrels are arriving daily, and this time of year they are often in a very compromised state due to insects homing in on a defenseless orphan immediately.
I hope you enjoyed this long overdue post and hope to read your feedback!
Sigi
