Celebrating!

Well I had to laugh when I looked out of the window on my birthday...despite all the lovely sunshine we have had recently there was a howling gale and torrential rain! No surprises for October really, especially as this is usual birthday weather for me, but  it was a shame. Mind you, I did manage to have lunch outside in the sun the day before so I am not really complaining.

I have had a lovely few days celebrating with a gorgeous bunch of flowers including these orchids, new crafting goodies to play with including a Tim Holtz 'A compendium of curiosities', various Idea-ology embellishments, distress inks, acrylic paint dabbers, crafty individual stamps, charms and some lovely paper chase boxes and files. We have had a yummy take out curry and went to the cinema to see 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' - an excellent movie.

With the new goodies I made this altered printers tray. It is small, at only 6x6 inches, but was my first ever attempt. I loved it so much that I now want a bigger one! I used distress inks, Lavinia, Hero Arts, Tanda and crafty individuals stamps, crafty individuals nature images, Tim Holtz Ideology frame and glass bottle, shells, a conker, a pressed leaf, and a bird cage charm...more detailed photos follow.  I am entering this into the Simon Says Stamp and show challenge for this week, as some of the techniques used were demonstrated by Wendi Vecchi, although I don't own any of her stuff so I hope that this counts. This also fits with the sew many cards challenge to use the colours burnt orange, yellow and brown, all of which can be seen throughout this piece.

I had so much fun incorporating all the different things, playing with inks, paints etc, that I want to get hold of a full size one to alter for our study wall.  I am going to enter this into the Pixie Dust 'Anything but a card',  and crafty creations 'crafty decoration' (this is a wall hanging).

As I used autumnal colours for this and a small conker and real, pressed autumnal coloured leaf I am also entering this into Stampavie's 'autumn', Fussy and Fancy 'fall' and Paper play and stampin' for the weekend 'autumnal colours'.

The largest panel is shades of brown and has real shells, a glass vial full of sand (from Cleethorpes beach!) and so fits with the DYSU 'brown', CCCB '3D' and Delightful challenges 'make it dimensional' challenges.

Parts of this piece also have the same colours as the inspirational photo from this weeks Flourishes Timeless Tuesday challenge and the butterflies (there are 2 of them), mean that it also fits with the Flutterby Wednesdays 'open' challenge.

I apologise for the photos..all will be improved once my new computer arrives on Monday! Have a nice weekend everyone,
Love,
Caro
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