Bountiful Harvest for Frilly and Funkie

Hi everyone and welcome! With Thanksgiving just around the corner in the US and the Autumn leaves falling to the ground here in the UK, the latest Frilly and Funkie challenge hosted by the wonderful Nancy Dynes is called 'Bountiful Harvest'. For this one she wants us all to "create any vintage or shabby chic project celebrating the bounty of the season in the rich hues of autumn."

At the end of the challenge the team will choose their top four picks. Our first place winner will be invited to join us in a Guest DT spot at Frilly and Funkie. Three additional talented participants will receive badges to display on their blogs. Everyone who enters and adheres to the challenge guidelines will be entered into a drawing to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique!

For me the bounty of this season comes from the array of trees in the park where we walk our dog. After the acorns and conkers have fallen and the berries have all been picked, it's the turn of the leaves to take centre stage; the rich hues dress the branches (and then the floor!) bringing much needed colour to the rapidly shortening days. Hopefully you'll see all of this captured in my card.

I've used Tim Holtz 'Leaf Prints' stamp set extensively for this, firstly in the background layers as a paint resist, then for the second Crushed Olive background with simple inky stamping, and finally for the embossed centrepiece. Contrasting the earthy layers was important for this design; kraft card blended with shades of brown and blue paint made the yellows, reds and greens really pop the way they do against autumnal skies. I also found a coordinating scrap of blue leather and piled ink on a piece of gauze for added texture.

The bottom leafy layer is so easy to achieve - just smoosh the four red Distress Paints on your craft mat, press the leaf stamps into it and stamp onto plain white card. Then when dry spritz over with the Distress Spray Stains and hey presto! autumn has arrived! I added a small sprinkle of black embossing powder to the final layer of heated gold embossing powder to get the aged look before pressing another of those gorgeous leaf shapes into it (cover the stamp in black archival ink first to make the final image stand out even more). The middle layer is a simple case of mopping up the remaining Distress Spray Stains with white card and stamping some of the leaves with Distress Inks (a touch of spritz and flick with the water makes it look as weather-beaten as me after my dog walks!!!)

So that's my contribution to the Design Team's inspiration for our 'Bountiful Harvest' challenge. Make sure you hop on over to the Frilly and Funkie challenge blog to see the other fabulous makes from my super talented teamies and find out how they've celebrated this season, by which time I'm sure you'll be ready to join in the fun with us and of course be in with a chance to win! For now take care of yourselves, Jenny xxx