Grateful for Autumn

Hello everyone!  To those who visited my blog on Halloween, thanks for stopping by to see my Halloween decorations.  It is always a fun time for me, and I love to decorate our yard for the many trick or treaters and neighbors who come to visit.  If you missed it, and still have a little Halloween spirit in you, be sure to check it out  here.

Here is my "Grateful" table decor that I would like to enter into the following wonderful challenges:
Frilly and Funkie "A Grateful Welcome"
Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge #19 "For All That You Do, Thank You!"
Country View Challenges "Bugs, Bees and Butterflies"
A Vintage Journey "Bountiful Harvest"
Inspiration Journal "Happy Holidays" Thanksgiving theme, here!
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge "Good Ole' Days" (My leaves remind me of the good ole" days when we had the most awesome autumn color in the hills of NJ--not now in South Eastern NC--very little fall color.)
Rhedds Creative Spirit "Anything Goes"
Artist Trading Post Exchange "Any Old Iron"  The caps of the acorns have a very similar texture, as well as the micro beads on my butterfly, and the rust colors I've used throughout my piece remind me of the inspiration photo.
The Crafters Cafe Challenge #88 Things With Wings


Warning:  This will be a photo heavy post, but I will do my best to keep the details to a minimum. I wanted to make something like this using a bird cage  for my Guest Designer post at Frilly and Funkie, but was unable to find any vines locally at the time.  I received my  online order just yesterday, so I was determined to make this and enter into Frilly and Funkie's "A Grateful Welcome".

I read a tutorial by Vicki Boutin the other day on how to make a butterfly brooch out of Tim Holtz Eclectic Elements fabric, and I fell in love.  I love butterflies, and purchased Tim's Layered Butterfly die set a while back, but have not used it.  Finally a perfect opportunity! I only have one design of Tim's fabrics, so I improvised by making my layers out of muslin which I stamped with various Stampin' Up and Tim Holtz stamps in Archival and Ancient Page inks. Otherwise I pretty much followed what Vicki did here with a few minor adjustments.  I used micro beads in my vial and crackled it using Tim's technique in Vol. 3 of his Compendium of Curiosities and micro beads on the top butterfly layer instead of paint.  I was inspired to use the copper color beads by the great artist Bonnie McLain of Love, Light, and Peace, who sent me a lovely card adorned with a beautiful copper mesh butterfly. This butterfly is simple to make but takes FOREVER!  That is why I'm pulling in at the last minute for Frilly and Funkie.  It was such a wonderful outcome, I decided to make a few more using the Sizzix butterfly Movers and Shapers.

Just kidding:  These are butterflies I was chasing around my garden!  Here's the cloth butterfly and his little buddies:

So with my vine and my butterflies, I was able to get started.  I picked up this empty floral display box at a yard sale this summer, and have been adorning it with a simple candle on my porch ever since.  This would be perfect for the project I have in mind. I used a piece of scrap styrofoam recovered from my Halloween window to fill the bottom.  I covered a piece of notebook pad backing with purple burlap I have been hoarding for years (who USES that stuff?)

I had a large-ish, very orange pumpkin from my  dismantled window display, and I thought it would add some visual weight to my arrangement, but it needed to be toned down.  I dry brushed it with various acrylic paints, misted it with Perfect Pearls mist and sprinkled it with Diamond Dust, which stays on my work top until Christmas.  I thought it would look like frost on my pumpkin. I gave the same treatment to some gourds, wicker balls  and acorns I picked up on clearance at Michaels last night.

The red you see is a reflection--I am taking this photo through the glass of the display box. Why do I torture myself by assembling before taking a photo???

I made a ton of leaves using the Sizzix Movers and Shapers  leaves dies.  This is sketch paper I sopped up Distress stains thinned with water with, dried and spritzed with various Dylusions, Perfect Pearls, and Tattered Angles sprays and dried again.  Each leaf was pinched between my fingers to make the veins, and highlighted with Distress ink. Love this die, and I think it makes an authentic looking leaf.  I just need the Bigz leaf die now (it was out of stock, so I settled for the Movers/Shapers).

Oops!  Looks like I missed the highlighting on this one!

I finished these up at my daughter's piano lesson, so I took these shots on top of a baby grand! The lighting wasn't so good and the colors look faded.

I made a few flowers with petals I already had cut in my stash using Tim's Tattered Florals die. These are just cardstock inked with Distress Inks, sent through the crimper a 100x's to soften them up, and there is even some made out of some faux leather samples I hoarded. I picked up the stamens at Michaels on clearance.

Just kidding, again!  Aren't they lovely?  I accidentally uploaded this photo when uploading to my blog...these are the last flowers from our garden before the frost last night. My cat has already eaten the caladiums! Here are the flowers I made:

The smaller banner with "Grateful" on it is actually real birch bark which blew off the tree out front when we were leaving for church yesterday.  A sign from God!  I thought I should be grateful for this gift, and used it in my arrangement.  I heat embossed the sentiment from Stampin' Up repeatedly to echo the grain of the bark, and spritzed it with Perfect Pearls and dusted it with Diamond Dust to make it look like frost.

Oh!  What happened here?

The larger banner is left over  from my Guest Designer project here.  You can see details of it on my blog, but the long and short of it is that it is made from drywall tape and embossed with Tim's Thankful Texture Fade. Unlike my last project, I was able to wind this through the arrangement in one continuous piece.

I think it all came together quite nicely, and although my original plan was to use a bird cage for this, I really didn't want to use my antique one, and thought, why spend more money, when I had this perfectly good box that would have the same effect. I was happy to use many things I already owned or had previously made in this project, but it was fun to add something new, too.

 I hope you enjoy the photos!  Thank you for visiting and for all your wonderful, inspiring comments.  I truly appreciate each and every one!

PS.  I was unable to upload the photos of the entire project due to technical difficulties...hope to do so tomorrow. (My daughter has to upload photos from her camera to the computer, since mine refuses to do it--she went to bed earlier.)  I wanted to get this entered into Frilly and Funkie and any challenges that were closing within 24 hours, since we are not going to have Internet service tomorrow. I'm writing this at 1:30 a.m to make the deadline. Please check back for the complete line of photos of the entire project. Please don't judge me on this! UPDATE:  photos are done!