Pumpkins!

I've been seeing a lot of great ideas for pumpkins lately. I just can't resist a cute pumpkin! Here are 4 of my latest CASE's of pumpkins.

First, I can't remember which blog I saw this pumpkin on but I just love it! This adorable little pumpkin is 1 1/2 inches high. I used the round tab punch for my pumpkin but I've also seen the circle punches, oval and scalloped punches used. I used 8 punches but you could use more if you wanted to. First, I cut the paper into 2 inch strips and rolled them with the Baroque Borders wheel. Since it is a small wheel I had to roll it twice on each strip. Use any swirly wheel but if you use a large one you will only have to roll it once.

After rolling each strip I punched the Round Tab punches out and adhered each one to the next until I had all 8 attached to each other but didn't attach the final ends together. I made a square of Chocolate Chip cardstock about 1"X1 1/2" and rolled it up tightly, secured the end and adhered it to the center of all the punches. I cut thin strips of Old Olive cardstock and wrapped them around a stylus handle to get some curl started then I wrapped them around the metal tip of the stylus to get a tighter curl. I added these to the stem and then adhered the 2 ends of the pumpkin and that's all there is to these cute little guys!

For the card I made the pumpkin the same way only I used 7 punches instead of 8. There's no reason you couldn't use 8 again but it looked pretty full at 7 so I stopped there. I pretty much totally CASEd this card but I can't find it now to give the creator credit. If you know who's blog I found it on, let me know so I can give credit to her.

Next is a Top Note Die pumpkin. Again, I copied it from someone's blog but I didn't put their name under it in my Top Note document so I don't know who to say came up with the idea. Angie gave 2 sheets of Cast A Spell designer paper at a crop Thursday (she is soooo sweet!) and they were perfect for a pumpkin patch layout. I cut 4 of the Top Note Dies from Pumpkin Pie cardstock and sponged Pumpkin Pie ink around all edges. I overlapped the first two in the back of the third one so they extended nearly an inch on either side then I reinserted the last die into the machine to come up with the skinny middle. I didn't take any pictures when I was doing it but when you are trying to line it up there is pretty much one way to make it nice and rounded on the ends. After inking that last edge I put it in the middle and added a stem of Close to Cocoa punched with 2 of the Modern Label punch and curly q vines of thin strips of Old Olive like the Round Tab punch pumpkins in the first 2 projects.

The picture of the layout is a little blurry but I mounted the designer paper onto Close To Cocoa cardstock and stamped pumpkins from the Autumn Harvest stampset on the bottom. I designed the title in My Digital Studio and printed it out on Very Vanilla cardstock. I was amazed that the orange perfectly matches the Pumpkin Pie cardstock! My printer didn't fail me (for the first time in about 3 months). I'll have to see how it matches some of the other colors but now I know it matches Pumpkin Pie exactly.

A friend called me a traitor (hi michelle!) for doing digital layouts but I think I will use the program more for hybrid layouts and for designing layouts than I will for plain flat digital pages. I just love playing with my stamps and paper too much to totally go digital. I do love the My Digital Studio program though. I've learned how to use it to do flyers and I saw someone who did a picture video on it. I need to check that out and do a picture video to send to family with all the pictures I have of the grandkids. You can even have music playing with your videos! I'm sure I'll post when I figure it out so you can do videos with it too. I'm going to put my newsletter on the sidebar after I post this so you can keep up with the latest news from Stampin' Up and my class schedule too. I've been trying to figure out a good way to do a newsletter and My Design Studio is wonderful for them. I just need find out how to make it clickable so you won't have to email me for a copy of it!

The last pumpkin is one I did last year but it folds up flat to store through the un-pumpkin season so I just spread it out again and put it on the shelf above my stamp desk. It is from 1 1/2" strips of Pumpkin Pie cardstock, rolled with the same Baroque Borders wheel. I stacked 8 of the strips up and punched a hole with the Crop-a-dile. It is cool because it will go through all 8 layers with no problem at all! I put a large brad through both sets of holes and then pulled the strips apart, they just take on the round shape as you pull. I topped it off with a 5/8" bow of Old Olive ribbon.

One of the things I love about pumpkins (besides pumpkin bread) is that you can use them for Halloween decorations and then keep them out in November for Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoyed my pumpkin fest today!