Golden oldie Autumn scene

I’ve been blessed with a group of friends who’ve “been there” for each other for four decades or more now–through thick and thin (literally, weight-wise!), births and deaths, joy and tragedy, laughter and tears. Just basically life in general. There are 7 of us who are sisters-by-choice, and 8 of us, including my “birth-sister”. I can’t imagine my life without them, and many times, they’re the only reason I managed to survive to this point!

THREE of them have November birthdays! Whew…..but YAY, coz then I have an “excuse” to use all the wonderful Autumn-centric papercrafting goodies I love to buy….and then let fall by the wayside as I concentrate on upcoming Christmas needs. And this year, I get to play along with the new Retro Rubber Challenge, too–allowing me to happily pull out all my “golden-oldie goodies”…for my golden-oldie friends. (woops–had to dodge a shoe one of them threw at me for saying that….)

SO, anyway, this is my second entry for the first RRC challenge…they said we can enter as many times as we wish, and I’m just thrilled to have been able to play along. This card prominently features my oldest-bought-by-me stamp, from Lovely as a Tree, which was in the first batch of stamps I bought when I found Stampin’ UP! several years back.  I had tried so-called-stamping wayyyyyyyyy back years ago before I knew SU existed. But those weren’t fabulous SU stamps and the results I got trying to stamp then were PIT-I-FUL. Finding SU was like one of those hallelujah-moments they have on tv shows when a spotlight beams down on whatever fabulous-thing the hero learns.  Yup, THAT much difference in the quality and results!

I’ve once again used a bunch of oldie-stuff and a bunch of new goodies to create my card:  Apothecary Accents and Ovals Framelits (current) frame the stamped trees, and the retired Adorning Accents Edgelits and Embossing Folder shape the card; the current Woodgrain Embossing Folder was used on a piece of Color Me Autumn dsp (love how it gave such a distressed finish to back up the stamped panel), and I’ve added retired buttons with some current Linen Thread bows. My colors are all current SU (I’m completely in love with Mossy Meadow right now), and I’ve used both SU markers and Blendabilities to get my tree scene colored to my liking. I saved the happy-birthday greetings for inside my card, in a hand-written note, which I surrounded by randomly stamped leaves from the Fall Fest set from the holiday catty. I let some of the images show up from the front of the card when closed.

Hopefully, my dear “old” friend–who is a nature-lover and talented artist–will appreciate my attempts to create a “painted scene” for her. Since I can’t even draw stick people myself–stamping lets me feel like an artist, too! Thanks for sharing this walk down an Autumn lane with me and for visiting my Little Corner today!