Thanksgiving Joys

Hi everyone there are a few people that I send Thanksgiving cards to. When I saw that Shopping Our Stash has a Thanksgiving challenge this week I knew I needed to make a card with that theme. Also Just For Fun has their monthly challenge which is Give Thanks and the monthly challenge for the Mixed Media Card Challenge is Thanksgiving. And another challenge I almost forgot about is this week's Hiding In My Craft Room color challenge.. I will post the links to all these challenges at the end of the post so you can join in the fun also. :-) Thanks goodness for all these challenges as they motivated me to get another Thanksgiving card done.

I'm a loving how this card turned out as I did some experimenting along the way. Of course I didn't mind that my first stamped image didn't turned out as I would have liked as it gave me a chance to play with my markers to decide which ones to use as well as to see what would happen when I rubbed chalk over the image after coloring. Okay enough of my yakking. Drum roll please!

I started out by running photo paper through my embossing machine. This time I wanted the leaves to be de-bossed instead of embossed. Then the fun began with rubbing Distress Inks over the photo paper with a blending tool until I liked it. I did realize that I need to buy re-inkers to ink a couple of ink pads. I just don't understand why they would need it other than they have been heavily used for over five years as they were the first Distress Ink pads I bought.

My sentiment is from a vintage clipart. I didn't like the color so changed that in PhotoShop. After cutting just the sentiment out I inked the edges with gold ink.

The woven trim was a thrift store find. At the time I was going to use it for a piece of  artwork  with a beach scene but changed my mind. Since photo paper is narrower than my card base I wanted something to cover the seam. After playing around I decided that I wanted a little bit of the card base to show. 

The image I used is by Just For Fun Rubber Stamps. Sorry I'm too lazy to look up the name of it. Originally I tried to use Sticky embossing powder to foil the image but I didn't like the way it turned out. Then I saw the jar of Precious Metal Leafing Medium and thought I would see what happened stamping using it. I applied the medium with a sponge brush. Then stamped like normal. I had just a little bit too much of the medium on my stamp. Second time was the charm. 

I colored the ribbon with a Spectrum Noir marker and then heat embossed clear over it. However when I colored with chalk over the entire colored image it was dulled. The corn and husks were also colored with Spectrum Noir Markers.  I have a ton of Spectrum Noir markers but not a good orange and I didn't like any of the browns I tried on the my first stamped image. A friend gave me a set of Tulip markers so I used those.. For the leaves when I went to brush yellow over using the brush tip another color was transferred giving me the happy accident of having mottled leaves.

After hand cutting out the image there were white edges as well as I thought the gold leafing was too bright. The husks were too bright of green also. On my first stamped image I decided to see what would happen if I chalked over the image with Khaki color chalk and my finger. I then took a cotton ball to wipe some of the chalk off. I love how it muted the gold and the green. As well as helped the edges to blend in more.

Challenges I'm entering:

1. http://justforfunrubberstamps.blogspot.com/2016/11/just-for-fun-november-challenge-give.html
2. http://shoppingourstash.blogspot.ca/2016/11/sos277-gobble-til-you-wobble.html
3. http://www.hidinginmycraftroom.com/2016/11/himcr-274-fall-colors.html
4. http://themixedmediacardchallenge.blogspot.com/2016/11/mmcc-29-thanksgiving.html

What challenges if any do you enter? Does entering challenges motivate you to craft more?

What have you used to stamp with besides ink pads?

Off to hide in my craft room some more and after I glue some dried grasses in between two sheets of deli paper to create another holiday card.

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!