Falling in Love with Autumn!

I have to tell you, this is a VERY exciting day for me. This is my first project as a Design Team Member for Sweetsassydiva !

My name is Mindy Dickinson. My blog is called Grammies Craft Room ( I share my craft room with my 6 yr old granddaughter when she comes to visit )

I have only just been asked to join my first design team for Crafting When We Can Challenge ~ .
I am a Cricut Circle member and my message board name is NJGrammie.
I am mother to 3 grown kids and grandmother to 2 little ones. I have been crafting since I was 7 and my grandmother taught me to crochet. Since then I have tried just about everything out there. Paper Crafting and Counted Cross Stitch are my all time favorites.
I work as a ‘lunch lady’ to allow me to buy and play with all my crafting toys.
My husband bought my Expression for me 3 years ago and I haven’t looked back since. I now also own the E2 Anniversary edition ( bought at launch), the Imagine(bought at launch) and Gypsy (my favorite!). I have been playing around with the Craftroom and have been able to cut with the E2, but haven’t tried with the Imagine yet.

I have approximately 75 cartridges and use about 20 of them regularly. My most used cartridge has to be Kate’s ABCs. My summer project was to make a cut book with all the images from each cartridge in it... hahaha not finished !! maybe next year ! I have gotten more selective with my cartridge purchases, choosing ones that have a wider range of images.

I like to make cards, but I love to make ‘other’ projects the best.

My crafting style is definitely on the simple side. I know I am drawn to projects that seem to be on my crafting level. I love to look at the fancy, sophisticated ones, but I go back to the simple ones time and time again.

I hope you will visit my blog and see all the other things I have done in the past year.

This weeks challenge is to make a wreath. Since fall is my favorite time of year, of coarse I would be using warm, fall colors.

I started by using my Gypsy to make the wreath form. I put 2 circles from George and Basic shapes on my mat and sized them at 9.5" and 6.25"

and cut out using a 12x12 sheet of brown card stock.

Next came the leaves... lots of leaves...that are from Everyday Paper Dolls, cut at 2" in 3 colors. I used metalic gel pens to bring out the cut lines and sponged the edges in Close to Cocoa from Stampin Up. Then I embossed them using the Forest Branches Cuttlebug folder.

The acorn image is from Holiday Cakes. I cut the shadow, base and shift layer all at 2". For the base and shadow I used the auto fill feature on the Expression 2 . I set the paper size to 11" x8.5", chose the image, sized to 2", then hit the auto fill.

I did the same thing with the shadow and shift layer. After I had the 3 layers cut out I decided that I wanted more than the 2 basic colors, so I got the Gypsy out again and pulled up the shift layer. I did the hide contour thing so I could cut the berries in one color then the leaves in another color.

I inked all the edges and put them together. I have some spare parts to use in future projects :)

Some feather yarn for the hanger, a few rhinestones and some of the extra small leaves were added and I called it done.


One thing I want to mention is I used my hot glue gun to assemble this project. I have found that things that have been embossed are hard to attach with double stick tape or regular paper crafting glue.


My supply list:
Cricut Cartridges : Holiday Cakes, Everyday Paper Dolls, George and Basic Shapes
Cards stock - Stampin Up -More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Really Rust, Early Espresso, Mellow Moss, Tangerine Tango, Crumb Cake
Ink - Stampin Up Close to Cocoa
Patterned paper - old Stampin Up Designer paper
Sakura Gel Pens - Lime Star and Gold
Feather Yarn
Rhinestones

Melinda