Autumn or Winter?

Hello and welcome everyone!  Thank you all so much for your amazing comments and support through last week's busy business - it makes all the work (okay, play - but pretty all-consuming play at times) worth it!

It's a big Artistic Outpost day today, with not one but two brand new releases... one very much Autumn-based, and one on the Christmas end of things.  I'll give you a quick look at what I've been making with each of them, and then you'll get to see the projects in more detail over the next days and weeks.

And there's lots more inspiration from the rest of the Artistic Outpost Design Team, all well worth a visit.  Here's the full itinerary of the hop:

Gerrie, Lisa, Suzz, Tracy, Linda, Alison, Terry, Kate

So here's what I've been doing with the fabulous Hayride plate - perfect for the autumnal crafting colours (and with a vine stamp that's gone straight into my top 10 favourite stamps!)...

And I seem to be in a neutrals mode for Christmas - this is what Christmas Chalk inspired me to create...

The two plates are full of gorgeous images and wording, and - as always - they mix and match beautifully with other Artistic Outpost stamp sets.  Christmas Chalk, especially, offers up some lovely Christmas sentiments and decorations which can be combined with any Christmas stamps you already have.

So, for today, I'll just share one of each set of creations with you, so that you can have a closer look at some of these great new images.

Going in to bat for Autumn, we have this set of tags.  I really wanted just to have a bit of a play with the stamps, to explore them a bit, and this was where it took me. 


I had great fun playing with the backgrounds: some wrinkle-free distress, some spritzing and flicking, some stencilling, some inking and distressing.


Pretty much without meaning to, I realised I was creating progressively darker, more detailed backgrounds, ending up with this monochrome rainbow effect!

Each one started with the same basic stamping, done in either Potting Soil or Sepia Archival ink, or a bit of both.












I stamped the pumpkins and then stamped them again on some book paper (nice and thin) to create a mask so that the vine could creep "behind" them. 

This is the simplest tag with just some gentle inking around the edges. 

Can you see why I'm completely in love with this vine - it definitely joins my all-time favourite floral flourishes.

This is the full-on wrinkle-free distress tag, with all the stamping done in Potting Soil.







And I love the little sign too.  As you can see in the stamp plate pictures, the sign itself is blank, so that you can add words over the top to create a number of different notices.  

Here the sign is stamped in Sepia, and the words in Potting Soil, so that they stand out well.

Had a little play with one of my new Tim Holtz stencils here too!

There are three possible sets of word on the Hayride plate, but I know there are sentiments within my stamp collection which will also sit there really nicely!

I think this spritzed and flicked background may be my favourite of the four...

The little pail of apples is another delicious image - delicious apples too, I'd guess.

I could have used the Hayride sentiment from this set, but all the time I'd been playing the Simplify Simplify words from the Old Grist Mill plate had been revolving in my head, so I gave in and grabbed that one instead!












And I inked up the twine and raffia in progressively darker colours too, so that the monochrome rainbow continues onto the tag toppings...

In the Winter corner, we have a tag set created with the Christmas Chalk stamps - though these gift tags are considerably smaller!













I started with some paper from the It's Christmas Time paper pad by Maja Design.

I handcut the tag shapes to fit the words.












Since we're using Christmas Chalk, I stamped in a chalk ink - Versamagic in Jumbo Java.

I do like the matte finish it gives.

I love the lettering - especially those fabulous textured letters of the word Christmas on this one, and the Let It Snows on the first one.

And the reverse side of the paper has this rather smart stripe to it, where I've stamped the To: and From: stamps... making this a really quick make - a lovely way to smarten up your Christmas gift-wrapping with very little effort!







As most of you know, I have a hard time with Christmas crafting before at least November, so I have to finish off back in Autumn, with the glowing September sunshine on the Hayride tags...

Thanks so much for stopping by today... If you want to see more of these amazing new stamps, do have a hop round and see what my amazing team-mates have been creating - you won't regret it!  If you lose your way, you'll find all the details here.  

A quick real life update: a deposit has gone down on a rental property (having seen 20 houses in the space of four days last week) so at least we won't be homeless in four weeks.  And the clearing, sorting and packing goes on...  Hope you're all having a great week, and - if I get the chance - I'll see you out there in Craftyblogland!

I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

Henry David Thoreau

Three phrases that sum up Christmas are: Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men, and Batteries not Included.
Anonymous