Birgit & Marcia's October Challenge

Hello friends.  BIRGIT and I have been challenging ourselves each month for a while now with ideas that make us think outside the box or are new and different for us.  Birgit loves all things vintage, and a while back she sent me some absolutely beautiful vintage clippings that she collects online.  We decided for our challenge this month to combine some of those vintage papers and the season of Autumn for our cards.  I really like how both my cards came out, and I'm sure Birgit is going to WOW you with her creations too.  So let's get started!!

I wish I would have taken pictures of the papers before I started adding to them so you could see what I started with, but that would have required thinking ahead.....  Anyway, this piece looked like a vintage French postcard with a little cluster of light pink roses down in the right hand bottom corner.  Since we are trying to add Autumn to our cards too, I fussy cut out a bunch of fall colored mums using PTI's Mum's The Word to cover the pink roses.  Before adhering the mums, I stamped the larger fern from PTI's Meadow Greens several times in Old Olive ink and also a little twig branch from PTI's Twig Wreath in Early Espresso ink.  My sentiment is from PTI's Autumn Adornments and was stamped in Soft Suede ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder.  I sponged the edges of this panel with Tea Dye distress ink before adhering it to a kraft card base.  I finished it off simply with a narrow seam binding ribbon on the side.  This one really came together quite quickly, and as much as I like this card, it's my 2nd card that I really liked...in fact I already gave it away to a good friend at bible study for her birthday.  Take a look:

This card doesn't say Autumn to me the way my first card did, but I just really , really like the vintage feel to this card!  The bottom half of the card is from the piece that Birgit sent, and again, it was in kind of a French post card format.  I tore off the top half of the paper to give it that torn look, and then stamped the top half of my card base with a Heidi Swapp background stamp with Smoky Slate ink.  After adhering the bottom half of the vintage paper down, I sponged the whole card front with Tea Dye distress ink.  I die cut the leaf branch in black from PTI's Songbird dies and then added a bird that I stamped and fussy cut from Penny Black's The Sweetest Sound.  My sentiment is from PTI's Beautiful Brushstrokes Sentiments stamp set.  I also added some gold ink splatters over the whole card and a few gold sequins along with a piece of black twine to finish off my vintage birthday card. 

This turned out to be such a fun challenge and I'm so grateful to Birgit for sending me these images to play with.  Thank you, thank you dear friend...you really are the best!! :0)  And don't forget to visit BIRGIT'S blog to see what she has created for our challenge...I know you won't be disappointed!! :0)

And thank you loyal friends and fans for going along on this stamping journey with me these past 3 years...I treasure each and every one of you!  And really love it too when you leave comments to let me know how I'm doing...it makes my day to hear from you! :0)  Thanks again for stopping by and have a great weekend!