Thanksgiving Goodies

My husband just got back from the post office to mail our Thanksgiving cards. Thanksgiving is only four days away, but I made my cards so many weeks ago that I almost forgot to send them. So much for getting things made too early!

I thought I took some quick snapshots on my phone before sending them, but when I started writing this post I discovered that I had taken videos rather than photos. After exploring how to isolate a single frame from the video using my phone rather than resorting to using iMovie on my computer, I read about an app (video 2 photo) that easily does it. I purchased and downloaded the app and quickly converted them to stills and emailed them to myself so I could edit them through iPhoto. HOWEVER the images were saved as .png rather than .jpg, and they wouldn't import to iPhoto or upload directly to this blog. So it was back to searching the web on ways to convert them. No problem according to an OS X site, just open them in Preview, pull down the edit menu, hit Save As, and choose ,jpg. Easier said than done. My Preview version only had Save and not Save As. Here comes the weird part. When I went to Help in Preview it brought up a picture highlighting Save As (nonexistent on mine) but when I clicked on it in the Help section it brought up a screen allowing me to save it as .jpg. Go figure!

Here's proof that my Preview file menu does NOT have the Save As option:)

Anyway, back to the actual projects. My Thanksgiving cards were made using a terracotta card stock that I embossed with the Cuttlebug 'Autumn Type' embossing folder. I highlighted the raised type with a lighter colored chalk ink and then mounted the piece on a darker piece of patterned card. Embellishments include ribbon, leaves, flower, and tags.

For this year's Thanksgiving favors I made treat boxes using the Sizzix 'Carry All Box' die. I used a variety of autumn themed card stock for the boxes and added paper flowers and Happy Thanksgiving tags to spruce them up.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Chalkboard Tag - November 2013

Tim Holtz's November tag for 2013 uses a chalkboard technique on a black tag. I chose a dressmaking theme for this tag. My images were stamped in white ink, and then I rubbed white chalk over the tag with my finger. The bodice on the dress form was embossed and then applied atop the stamped image of the form with foam tape along with the button, scissors, and Paris tag for added dimension.

Fall Flowers

I've been busy making paper roses in fall colors (using mostly Graphic 45 papers) and have attached them to wooden skewers that serve as stems.

Today I found the perfect container for my arrangement at Michaels where all Halloween items were 80% off. Flower arranging is not my forte, but after much trial and error I was able to come up with a passable autumn arrangement.