Autumn can mean lots of things!!

Hello Funky Friends,

It's Paula here, and i'm with you today to bring you my creation/interpretation of the autumnal theme set by our lovely Amanda.

Well, I started to work on a project to bring to you this time, but then remembered I'd already made a card the other day which was in autumnal colours  - which is unusual because its a 'congratulations on your pregnancy' card.  It's not a massive card, but I have put my biggest hugs and best wishes in there, so hopefully it's big enough for that!

I hope that my photos are OK for you this time, because my proper camera has broken (the motorised lens barrel won't go back in, and when I keep pressing the power button - all it does is clicks, so i've had to leave it like it.  It's happened once before and it righted itself, but not holding out any hope this time.

Anyway, because I've taken these pictures on my mobile phone, I hope that the quality is good, but then again - the colours are so vivid anyway that half the battle is won already!

For my card, I've used the Craft The Year Away CD ROM and used papers from my favourite colour collection 'January Blues'.   Well let me tell you - if you're looking for miserable colours because its just January... you are really mistaken.  These are my favourites on the CD (did I mention that already?).

I've also used a digi from that CD too which is the pram, and the reason I've used the pram is because my best friend has told me that her daughter has announced that she's pregnant again - with baby number 2, so I did a little card to congratulate them - they already have a four year old son.

On the worksheet area of the CD, I loaded up three papers (brown, the cream and the unusual striped one).  I then reduced them to a quarter of the page size (A6) then dragged the image of the pram four times.  To make sure you re size everything to exactly the same size, click on each image while holding down the 'shift' key which will 'group' them together, then drag one of the corners to re size as desired.  This re sizes all four at the same time.  Each image of the pram was then dragged on to each of the quarters of the page - as follows:

You can see that once I have selected all four images that only ONE box appears around them all - also, the bottom right square on the box has turned green.  This is because I clicked on it so I could re size the box, which basically means that all four of the images get re-sized at the same time.  You can see all the other great digi stamps to the left of the workspace - well actually, that's not half of them judging by how far the scroll bar has still got to go down the digi-stamp page!

So, after printing the above out - which is only one click in the programme (then it brings your own printer option box up), I cut each of the prams out, but the plain white one was kept intact with its white background as that was to be its mat too (you'll see what I mean when you see the card).

After snipping up all the elements from each of the coloured images - wheels, body, canopy/hood, frill... I started playing around by placing them on the white version - I was seeing which combination would work the best.  For those who aren't aware, this is what paper piecing is.

I didn't want the card to look either too masculine nor too feminine either  because when all said and done, no-one knows what the sex of the baby is, and its not due until late May 2012 anyway although I'll bet they will want to find out.

The greeting on the card is the congratulations banner, which I placed over the striped paper to get exactly the look I wanted.  I then matted the finished image onto the multi-coloured polka dotty paper from the same collection to bring the look together.

Even though the collection is called 'January Blues', I personally think that it is full of the warm colours of Autumn and the collection remains my favourite on 'Craft The Year Away'.

You still have 4 whole days in which to join in - and if you can't because you don't have any Funky Hand papers to craft with - particularly any autumnal colours, Anice has kindly designed a Funky Freebie especially for the challenge.  In order to qualify for the challenge - you only need use this backing paper in some way on your project with anything else you have from your stash.

Here is a thumbnail of the freebie - which you can download by going HERE:

Here are the bits left over after I did the hack job on all three samples (enough to make 2 more prams, but nothing to mount them on):

Looks like child's play!

Here is my finished card complete with greeting:

So there you have it, a very different kind of card for the autumn theme - got the colours about right, and I need to add that, the news of the impending birth was announced in autumn afterall!  Actually, I think its a good name for a girl and I'm pretty sure that I've heard someone call their kid that already...


Be sure to check out Amanda's post HERE and read all the rules before you join in the challenge... (well, there's only one, which is to use something by Funky Hand on your project - and there's no excuse because I already told you (above) that there is a freebie for those who don't have anything by Funky Hand already.)))  This freebie will no longer be available once this challenge is closed, because there will be another one in its place to co-ordinate with the new challenge's theme.

If you do decide to join in with us, just add your card to the inlinks gadget at the bottom of each of this months posts... and remember that the challenge will change on the funky 15th November.


Thanks for reading and happy crafting one and all,


Paula x x x