OCTOBER TAG- The 12 Tags of 2014

Happy Fall, ya'all! I do love the fall months, but I hate what comes with it: The LEAF WAR (as of right now, the Battle Count is 1 win for the Leaves and 1 win for me. I conceded that first Battle only because of the slip&fall I took while putting the mower away during the rain. I didn't THINK I hit my head, but don't really know. I did find a huge 'goose egg' on the back of my crainium and I suppose I am kinda lucky I only ended up with four full days of awful hammering inside my head. No hospital for this gurl unless I am DYING. I see enough Drs and take enough meds, thankyouverymuch.

                                                                 Oh,but October has to be my FAVIE MONTH- because I was born on Sweetest Day in October of 1965. :) So yep, I'mma full-fledged PUMPKIN GURL! That doesn't mean I like scary stuff. I guess you could say I am not too 'Halloweeny' of a person. But I am really big on the fall colors, pumpkins, parties, and fun! So Tim's tag for this month didn't make me exactly do flips. And while I DO have the Alterations Candlelight Fright die (with the candlebra and spider on a webstring), you won't see me using the spider. YUK.

              Instead, I came up with an idea to use my Sizzix TeaCup ScoreBoards die #656549 and the TH Movers&Shapers Mini Branch &Leaf set #657208 for my main shapes. Since I was again making two more tags as gifts for 2 of my Besties who also share a Pumpkin Month Birthday, I wanted to keep it simple enough they could leave it out for a bit. So I used some real items in there: pieces of cinnamon stick and 'smelly' cards for apple pie tucked inside the cup. It gives that Fall Festival feeling of having a cup of hot apple cider in your hand. Yes- it REALLY adds something for the NOSE as well as the EYE! While I didn't have any of Tim's new Distress Stain Sprays (and hope to find a couple of them at least), I fell back into the idea of misting some of my Distress Inks and other Distress Stains I do have on hand. While it didn't all come together on the paper as nicely as Tim's did; it satisfied me for now and looks pretty cute. 

   Again, I am not a color-happy person and like to use muted tones and lots of tans take the forefront. So it was a chance for the leaves to be the 'star' of the tag as well as the cup itself. I wanted the embossed wording to be "chit-chat" that often goes on whenever we all share a hot cuppa anything. So I let it spread a tiny bit to allow it to look more like 'steam' coming up. The green leaf is actually still "on the tree" so to speak, and that is why it is the one hanging still. The one main difference I chose to part from Tim's directions is using Glossy Accents on top of my leaves. Instead, I used Distress Crackle Paint in Clear Rock Candy on top of the ink/water pen technique of coloring my leaves. Leaves in Indiana are definitely CRACKLED! And, they are definitely on my mind...

and all over the acreage...and in the gutters, and... *sigh*

   And they WILL BE...for a few more weeks yet to come. For some AWESOME pics I share on my WLYLA FRIDAY HITS on Twitter and Facebook- you will be able to see the leaves as they change week by week on our private lake here. I call these "LEAF BREAK" photos since I share them in the middle of my song choices. It was neat to share with other Twitter-users because one person said "You in Indiana have such a BEAUTIFUL STATE!!" and here I was thinking the same thing about THEIR STATE. It gave me an entirely new perspective on where I live and how TRULY BLESSED we are to live here in the USA.

   Thanks for checking in! I'll be posting a single mish-mash of all the things I made over the summer, but didn't make seperate postings on each. I thought I didn't have that much craft time over the summer months and was surprised to see how much ended up in my pics files! Plus, the photographs of trips still to come- awesome photography I LOVE doing!!! 

        Here's to the months of gift-making yet to come, and Happy Blogging! 

THIS is what Fall means to our family: FOOOOOTBAAAAALL!!! And for 11 years of our kids' lives...Band - all year 'round and for both Marching and Sports. Drums for the OlderSon, Trombone for the YgrSon, and Clarinet for YgrSon's Wife. Brian's NavyGurl is the only one who wasn't in Band, but HEY....she is NAVY. 'Nuff said! GO NAVY!!