The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn...

It's autumn again.  Not that I think summer ever really happened for us here in the UK, it's been a bit of a miserable one.  OK, we have had a few nice days and it hasn't rained all the time so have to think positively really, and it has made all the garden grow, especially the weeds which have been steadily taking over my garden.  Seems as soon as I have got to one end of the garden and cleared them all, some more have poked their ugly little faces through the ground and sit there taunting me.  A friend of mine bought his wife some sort of flame-throwing weed killing device which greatly appeals to me and the mere thought of this caused me (and his wife apparently) to laugh maniacally. Bwahahahaha!  Die weeds!  Die! And the flipping oak tree which has been taking a battering in the wind and bombarding my car with acorns... Oops I am being negative again. Hehe

I've rambled previously about how autumn is my favourite season and I have to say I am not enjoying this one so far.  My little boy started school at the beginning of September and the weather has pretty much been lousy every since.  First day the rain was blowing sideways on our journey home, and wasn't that the day we decided to go the longer route so he could let off a bit of steam on the way back?  Then a few days later the heavens opened exactly to coincide with the time my daughter came out of school.  I think it was the tail end of Hurricane Katya as we had mega gusts of wind, rain and hail blown horizontally into the poor children's faces as they were walking home.  First I knew of anything was hearing the screaming from outside of children who were getting shotblasted with little balls of ice.  It had been so nice earlier in the day too!  Then the sun came out and we had blue skies.  Confused.com lol

Anywayyyy, onto my card.  I'm sure you don't need to hear quite so much about the weather eh?  I have used the beautiful Sweet Pea Stamps ching-chou kuiks Come Softly, coloured with Promarkers.  Yes, I still love colouring in ;-)  I've been practicising hair and trying to get shine into it rather than it just appearing flat.  I think I am getting there slowly, but still have some way to go.  I have used just pink, brown and cream colours to colour the main image and then created the background directly behind her with Adirondack ink dye pads blended in with my blender.  I was very pleased with how it turned out and even more pleased when I realised it was a perfect match for some Basic Grey 'chantilly' paper I had.  I have used that at the back of the card and used some other Basic Grey papers 'two scoops' and 'blush' to build the card up.  I have followed the sketch at CASE study for the layout, with the stitching and the panels.

Now, back to autumn, and that darned oak tree.  Last week it dumped a great big branch, laden with little acorn cups, onto my driveway and as it wasn't raining (for once) I picked it up and took it into the house and let it dry out a little more as it look perfect for autumn projects.  I cut a small piece off and sprayed it with gold shimmer mist and I love the effect.  I finished off with 3 ribbons tied together into a bow.

I think the oak tree is having it's revenge as I type as I have just heard another load of acorns hit my car *sighs*