Musings - Fall has arrived and a FREE word art cut for YOU

Ahhh, AUTUMN! 

I’ll never tire of taking pictures of the beauty of fall.  The first I’m drawn to is the sumac - ranging from light to dark greens and morphing all the way into blazing pinky red orange before drying burnt sienna, chocolate before the slender branches release them to drop in horizontal curls which break down back into the earth. 

I’m grateful for each season. 

When one season ends and another begins, it prompts the entire cycle of my life and household.  I’m grateful for the shift, it causes me to appreciate nature in each stage.  An orchard tree is a perfect example of this.

In spring the tree brings forth hopeful green buds with prelude a burst of beautiful blossoms -more breathtaking than a ravishing gown on royalty.  Once these each open, dazzle us with their utter lovliness, they flutter gently into the wind and carpet the ground and are suddenly gone. 

Now, the summer tree takes over and  fully leafs out and fairly vibrates GREEN.  It produces tiny perfect fruits which begin to mature before our very eyes. 

Next, depending on the fruit - either late summer or early fall, each becomes of size and colors and then with “official fall” we are blessed to enjoy the succulent flesh, incomparable to any processed food we could ever come up with. 

After all of that, as the days become cold the tree now stands naked and sleeping - seemingly dead for what we can see, only - and this is the coolest part - the tree represents HOPE - for we can know that come spring, the cycle starts all over again. 

See why I love the seasons? I see these same cycles in our lives, the Lord doing a work through each new change. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-22

Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)

A Time for Everything

3 There is a right time for everything,

and everything on earth will happen at the right time.

2 There is a time to be born
and a time to die.
There is a time to plant
and a time to pull up plants.

3 There is a time to kill
and a time to heal.
There is a time to destroy
and a time to build.

4 There is a time to cry
and a time to laugh.
There is a time to be sad
and a time to dance with joy.

5 There is a time to throw weapons down
and a time to pick them up.
There is a time to hug someone
and a time to stop holding so tightly.

6 There is a time to look for something
and a time to consider it lost.
There is a time to keep things
and a time to throw things away.

7 There is a time to tear cloth
and a time to sew it.
There is a time to be silent
and a time to speak.

8 There is a time to love
and a time to hate.
There is a time for war
and a time for peace

 

Well, my birthday happens to fall in this season, September, and I was blessed by my dear husband with a Silhouette Cameo.  Dear, sweet man, his own computer is making all sorts of fun hard-disk noises and could fail at any time, yet he sacrificed and ordered a Cameo for me, an upgrade from my Silhouette SD.  As he knows that my Sil has not been idle for more than a few days at a stretch over the past year, I am soooo touched that he has done this.  I’m going to have to do a LOT of cutting with “Cammy”  to make it worth his while. 

Here’s the very first thing I made:

This pretty card! 

And this may have you asking what the flowers are made of?

These are 36 years old! - I found this package of 200 transparency films in the Salvation Army on my birthday (my Mother and Father in Law treated me out to dinner in Penticton - 1 hour drive - so while they went off to shop, my Mr. and I poked about downtown)  I was really excited when I found these though my Mr. just could not understand at that point just why.  I paid $1.50 for this package which would have close to 200 sheets.  I can see all sorts of uses for this, thinking butterflies etc? 

Have you ever found something unusual and used it in a craft?  I’d love to know. Do you have a suggestion for me for these transperancies?

A good way to test out my Cameo - it performed perfectly.  I used this six petal flower shape which I believe I bought in the Silhouette Online Store.  I simply modified it by making three different sizes and adding a small hole in the center. 

NOTE: was just asked by Jocelan which setting I used, I believe I used the same setting as for Silhouette vinyl. 

So my next cut, I decided, should be one I make for YOU! 

But, before I do that, I have a funny photo to share so I’m sneaking it in here.  One day when I visited the fruit packers with my Mother in Law, we saw this:

Charlie, the cherry-eating Weimaraner dog!  His owner was kind enough to allow me to take a photo.  Kind of makes you smile, right? 

K, so here’s what I made for you -

 

A pretty two-piece fall word art.  One layer is the word with three leaves and an acorn attached, the second layer is just the word.

I know the background paper used is a Graphic 45 but the others are anonymous from my scrap-heap.  I embossed the top layer of the fall - a clear layer over brown card-stock.  I made the base layer out of cream card-stock, then stamped the leaves different colors before gluing and adding fairy glitter to them.  I modified a scalloped edging I purchased at the Silhouette Online Store

Just click on the following download link to pick up the fall word art.  Feel free to use it for all your projects but a link back would be totally appreciated.

Barb Derksen’s FALL WORD ART

.studio file

DOWNLOAD

 

In fact, if you like this fall word art, you may want to visit the free .studio and SVG tab (top of this blog) and look waayyyyy down (almost at the bottom!!!) and you will find the original leaves and acorn cut by themselves to download for your autumn projects. 

Stay tuned, I have loads more cuts rattling around in my head so check back often for more FREE files!