Ravens everywhere!

So this morning I decided to make something for this week's Fresh Brewed and Midnight Madness challenges, so I ask my Baby for advice, and he said, Ravens. Perfect, I thought. I'll do something Halloweeny but kinda grown-up, as is the MM sketch. I was envisioning raven cutouts, but ended up making a broadside with the first 8 stanzas of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. Living in Baltimore, both have become synonymous with Halloween.


However, as I finished up this pretty purple poem I realized that the Ravens were playing the Patriots. Oh, I thought. Those Ravens. Perhaps the color challenge of purple and black, which I had told Baby, is related to all of this. What? I like the color combo, regardless of our home football team's famous colors.
I finished the first project just in time to watch a very exciting overtime in the Ravens game. The Patriots won 23-20, but Ray Lewis always makes me swell with as much team pride as I'll ever manage to swell with. So, I made this ridiculous 3x3 card for the clean&simple sketch #112:


The image on the left is supposed to be "offense", like "off [the grass]" + "fence". What? The only thing I know about football is that a great defense is worth nothing without a good offense. And I didn't want to leave anybody out.

Jack O Lace Treat Bag

I had so much fun using Therese Travis's Halloween cutting files for the Jack O Lace spin card, that I used the files again for a treat bag (a la Papercraft Vixxen). As you can probably tell from the photos, I had a heck of a lot of fun! For inspiration I used ColourQ Challenge #54 (basic black, pumpkin pie, old olive, concord grape, white) and Aud Sentiments Challenge #12 ("any Halloween sentiment" and treat bag bonus challenge). Sadly, I missed the deadline for the latter, but the inspiration was the point anyway!


Challenge: ColourQ #54 (basic black, pumpkin pie, old olive, concord grape, white)
Treat bag design and tutorial: Stamp My Art
Cutting files: Jack O Lace and Boo Border by Therese Travis
Supplies: Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Recollections cardstock, ZipDry glue, Fiskars Deckle scissors, stash eyelet, Offray ribbon

Jack O Lace!

Autumn is shaking out her frost-kissed curls all over Baltimore, and I'm having my yearly should-I-or-shouldn't-I pumpkin carving crisis. I have many wonderful childhood memories of our yearly pumpkin, which was carved, gutted, and turned into garlic pumpkin seeds, maybe a pie, and compost. I also have many fond memories of nearly stabbing myself repeatedly in vain attempts to copy what was always an overly complicated design I drew on with ballpoint. My Jack-O-Lanterns always looked a little worried, and the candle never sat straight, but my folks proudly went through the whole process. When I started living on my own, however, I found that I burned the seeds, regular pumpkin makes a boring pie, and I'm totally incapable of parting with anything I've created for the house. Makes sense, considering one of my favorite childhood books was Mousekin's Golden House. Anyhoo, I'm mentally saving up for some awesome carving action with any eventually children, so for now I thought I'd make a nice, safe, non-organic spin card.
I've had my eye on Therese Travis's newest Halloween Friday Freebie cutting files, and finally an idea clicked. Her Jack O Lace made the whole idea fall together, and I couldn't resist using her Boo border for the inside of the square version. These were a lot of fun to make, and fairly easy since I used a spin card template I've used before. For color inspiration, I chose the simple yet elegant combo from this week's Scrapmaster's Paradise Color Combo: basic black, pumpkin pie, bashful blue. My blue isn't very bashful, but I love the way it informs on the back and orange. The SP Design Team example cards for this challenge are really inspiring!


Cutting files: Jack O Lace and Boo Border by Therese Travis
Challenges: SP Color Combo Challenge #69 (basic black, pumpkin pie, bashful blue)
Supplies: Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Recollections cardstock, ZipDry glue, Stickles, Michaels brand gem brad

Paisley Birdies Card

I took a week's break from cardblogging and I feel like I've been away for months! I'll never get over the energy and talent out in the scrapworld...
To get myself back in the swing, I pulled out a paisley frame SCAL file I created early this year and used it to make little birdies. My mom saw the idea in PaperCraft inspirations and this was a really fun way to refresh my old pattern. Basically, you stick an eye on a paisley, and the result is really striking. For extra inspiration I turned to the Color Throwdown #114: poppy parade, chocolate chip, pear pizzaz, and so saffron. How can I have so much paper and never quite the color I want? But I do like how the colors come together.


Challenge: Color Throwdown #114
Original Paisley element: The Quilling Patch (thank you!!!)
Final Paisley frame and birdie elements: Christina Gay (If you would like this file, I'd be happy to share it with you. Email christina [at] saysomethingloudly [dot] com and I'll send you the SCAL file. And I'd love it if you could leave a comment and/or become a follower.)
Supplies: Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Recollections cardstock, ZipDry glue

3x11

By popular demand - by which I mean I need to share it - I'm posting the text of a poem that spilled out of the other day as a mini book. When I say spilled out, I mean that like a glass of milk that spills into yogurt and just looks right on the counter. I hope you will take from it whatever is right for you...like yogurt.

American Mouth

How can you call that
thing you have
an American mouth
she said, her voice crammed with memory,
an American mouth is the Old English mouth
serifed in Irish, it is the Persian mouth
all reed and pigment;
you don't have room in your mouth
for the paddle of Polynesian, the cut of Norwegian,
your sharp little chompers couldn't bite
the kernel
of a Native tongue, it can't hold
the blade and hook.
The American mouth hides its language in its new language;
it's the space between all islands. Every word is
a breath.
My mouth is a million other mouths,
I said, the memory of their rhythms...but I'm alone,
lonely with my American teeth,
missing all the syllables I need to go home.
Look at your new little mouth, she said,
it's a parrot's mouth,
full of accent and without dialect.
You don't fill a mouth if
it's already full of air.