Celebrating Fall with Raccoons in Scarves

Howdy all & Happy Thursday!

It has been one heck of a long week it seems. I’m so ready for the weekend. I think I was probably ready on Monday, lol! Tomorrow is my 5th Wedding Anniversary. No big plans just a nice quiet dinner & a movie (at home because Avengers Age of Ultron is out on DVD tomorrow – LOL!). That’s fine with me though – quiet is good at the end of a long, busy week.

Today I’m sharing a cute card that I made to celebrate Fall. I’m a couple weeks late with the celebration of the first day of fall, but it’s never to late to showcase a cute raccoon wearing a scarf. At least I don’t think so.

I was turned on to Purple Onion Designs stamps by Sandy Allnock who featured their cute Halloween Kitty in the Hat, which I adored and had to have. I made a similar card using the same kitty on a fence in the moonlight that I shared a couple of weeks ago here on my blog.

I recently picked up a couple more stamps from Purple Onion Designs that were also drawn by Stacy Yacula.

She has some adorable fall critters that I kinda fell in love with. One was the raccoon which is on my card today and the other is a little squirrel that is gathering nuts. I just want to hug him.

Anyway, I put together this simple card to celebrate fall using my raccoon and some unique stamps from Stamps by Judith & Heather. I stumbled upon Stamps by Judith & Heather last year when the Scrapbook Expo came to Denver and I was hooked. They make these amazing card designs from several different stamps put together and colored to create a scene. They are so much fun to work with and really make putting together quick cards a breeze.

For this card I used the Tree for all Seasons stamp and positioned it so the base of the tree wouldn’t show to make it look like just tree branches. Then the fun part – you have to fill that tree with leaves and acorns. Stamps by Judith makes that easy with what they call “stick” and “stubby” stamps. They are simply rubber stamps at the end of dowels and there are so many cute designs and things you can do with these stamps. For this card I used my Oak leaf stubby stamp, my Acorn stick stamp and my Dots stick stamp and stamped them randomly around the branches of the tree and I added some falling to the ground and a nice pile of leaves on the ground as well.

Once I was happy with the amount of leaves and acorns, I colored up all of them with my Copics using some nice fall colors. When I was done I trimmed down the piece to make it a more manageable size for a card background.

Next I colored my little raccoon and his scarf with my Copics as well and fussy cut him out and positioned him on my background next to the pile of leaves.

For my sentiment I used the Harvest Mouse stamp set from My Favorite Things (which is currently sold out pretty much everywhere unfortunately). This is another adorable stamp set and I’ll be playing with it some more in the next few weeks so stay tuned for that. I stamped the sentiment onto some Neenah Solar White 110lb card stock and then used a nice banner die to cut it out. I added a hint of green distress ink around the edges and mounted it onto the card using some foam tape.

Once everything was colored and cut out, I mounted it onto a couple of pieces of fall cardstock and then onto my card base.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my cute raccoon in his scarf. I had so much fun making this card and I can’t wait to send it to a special person.

If you’re looking for some fun and unique ways to build cards check out Stamps by Judith & Heather. If you’re in the Denver area this weekend the Scrapbook Expo will be taking place and you can find their booth there as well (or look for a Scrapbook Expo coming to a location near you). They usually do live demonstrations of their stamps and how they put everything together. I know I’ll  be there on Saturday morning early to check them out and probably doing some damage on the old bank account as well.

Hope you have an awesome weekend and get some time to be crafty and get out and enjoy the beautiful fall colors that are all around us.