Happy Halloween!

When witches go riding and black cats are seen

the moon laughs and whispers

'tis near Halloween.

Author Unknown

The windy day

I knew it was coming. The wind. Suddenly whisking and whipping around yesterday afternoon, it came. The leaves were prepared and went sailing away. Wheeeee.

Our little maple has grown and sprouted leaves in abundance this year, now covering the yard like a beautiful multi-colored carpet.

I wish I could swoop them all up and press them. Little gems, they are.

Henri is amazed. "Where is my grass?"

This morning it is raining so all will be soaked, and the wind is supposed to continue. The trees will be bare and now we will be admiring their beautiful bare branches. Every season has it's beauty.

One more time

Done! Okay, I added a couple of transfers of my feather drawing. I'm done. It's done.

Now on to something else. I promise.

Everyone was enthusiastic and excited about making the serendipity papers yesterday at collage class. They found it as much fun as I had. Wait until they cut up the little squares next week! Joy! Then, the afternoon's quilting class presented another "bend in the road" for me. I had been so busy sewing the strips of those stockings last weekend, I seemed to have forgotten that the batting was supposed to be attached at that step! Woe is me. But no! As in collage, there are no mistakes with Denise. It can be remedied and I just have to add one extra step and attach it now before sewing the side seams and putting on the lining. Saved.

Wednesday

It's a "Transylvania" morning. Very foggy when I took the dogs out. I need to post "the bat" again.

Today begins a new six-week session of my collage classes at The Center, with a break in class for the Thanksgiving week. I am looking forward to lots of inspiration with this beautiful season and the upcoming holidays. Let's create!

Beautiful Autumn

At times, the leaves were falling fast; drifting down. "The falling leaves drift by my window; the falling leaves of red and gold..." la-la-la. Oh, how I wish it could last a little longer.

They make a beautiful carpet in my backyard.

And so we had a pleasant afternoon of drawing.

Thinking of all the things that go with this month, just look at this Halloween bat!

And here is a haunted house with a "very scary" window on the front door and a mummy on the roof.

"Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!" ~Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!

On Sunday

Hubby had finished carving his Indian in class and he couldn't wait to finish painting it. Isn't he wonderful?

As for me...I continued with my assembly line of stockings! They are such fun! And I am so happy to be using fabric that I have had just sitting around waiting for me. Next is a leaf garland and maybe some gift cards!

The Pumpkins!

Here are Dan and Danielle's creations of "Jack" and "Sally". Now Sally just needs some orange hair.

And here is their big carved pumpkin surrounded by all the little happy-faced white pumpkins from Aunt Julie's garden.

Lights out! And he looks kind of scary!

A bump in the road

Sewing most of the day yesterday. I guess I forgot to turn one side of a stocking and made two fronts, instead of a front and a back, so then had to scramble to make two backs to match. Doesn't that happen when you think you are going along so good and then whammy...a mistake happens. I guess my thoughts were scattered because I had to go out with my "club girls" last night for dinner. The meeting place was "Capri" Restaurant in Palos Heights, with 7 of us there. (We miss you GeGe.) I had one of the specials, which was Rigatoni with artichokes, red peppers and sausage in a lovely maybe wine sauce. yummy. A rainy, chilly evening but good to be together with these old friends, sharing old memories and new stuff.

"Santa's" workshop

Yesterday was a sewing day. Continuing on with making Christmas stockings. It's going to be a "Little House on the Prairie" Christmas this year. ho-ho-ho

My fall collage

Looking and looking at this collage. Adding and taking away.

If I add anything else, it takes away from my glowing sun (moon). I will look one more time today and then call it "done".

Painting the leaves

I can't resist these leaves again! The little maple next door has turned beautifully, so I had to go and take some to paint.

Okay Sue! First I laid the leaves on my watercolor paper until I was happy with the composition and then traced the outline of them. Yes, traced them! It's okay to do that this time.

Then I put the leaf that I was going to paint first on a white paper next to my watercolor paper, so I was able to see the colors closely and mixed my paints on my palette to be ready.

With a nicely loaded brush, I wet the inside of the leaf with a coat of water. If you have a good watercolor paper, it will soak in nicely and stay wet for a while to give you a chance to paint with nice painterly washes.

Here you can see the shiny surface of the wet leaf.

While it is wet, begin dropping in your colors. Let them run.

Dab in some little darks where you see them and let the colors run together.

Then, with a chisel end brush, draw in the vein lines. The paint will settle there and give the vein some importance. You can also drop a little on to help.

Then go on to your second leaf.

And keep going until all your leaves are painted.

Oh goody, we are done posing.

I decided to add some blue sky so they are not just floating in nothing. I remember looking up into the trees in Michigan and seeing that bright blue sky behind the beautiful red maples. Now, wasn't that fun?

Cornstalk Farm

Yesterday, Danielle and I took a drive over to the Cornstalk Farm to see what was happening there.

A nice place! They have a corn maze and lots of skeletons hanging around.

Happy skeletons, enjoying the Halloween fun!

They have lots of pumpkins to choose from and lots of specialty kinds too.

And here was "Jack" and "Sally". Had to buy some of those "white" pumpkins for Daddy and Danielle to make their own favorite couple!

Serendipity!

With plans for my new collage session starting a week from Wednesday, and thinking about doing a series, I decided to make "Serendipity Squares" today. This is a good way to use up all the little scraps of paper that I continue to save. I began by making piles of little pieces according to color and theme.

I glued the scraps down on cardstock, covering it completely.

Then I used my big postcard rubber stamp to stamp all over the entire surface to help tie all the different pieces of paper together.

Then I filled in some empty spots by stamping and embossing with a smaller stamp.

Some in gold...

using different smaller stamps...

and some embossed in black...

until I felt I had enough of the papers covered for interest.

When I felt the papers were completed, it was time to cut them up.

I cut them into 1" and 1-1/2" squares. They are very attractive little collages all by themselves.

Later, when putting together my collage series, I will choose some of these squares that relate to one another to tie my series together. And they were fun to do!