Pumpkin Pie, you are my, my Pumpkin Pie

There's a new challenge starting today at Di's Digis Challenge Blog... the theme is "Add a Pumpkin".  I didn't want a Halloween card (I've got a load in my stash and we just don't celebrate it here) so I've made a birthday card and simply added some pumpkins to the little picnic scene.  For some reason my pics are a bit "grainy"... I think a setting has been changed on my camera, I'll have to get my son to check it out for me... suffice to say it's "fresher" looking in real life!

I've made a big card... it measures 21cm x 15cm; it fits a standard large envelope so pretty straightforward from a postage point of view :-)

The image is Daisy Cupcake Time, though on the "original" image there are flowers where the pumpkins are... I scaled down some pumpkins from CC Designs and put them over the top of the flowers; one way to fit the Add a Pumpkin brief, lol.

I coloured with Copics, adding some extra shadows with Prismacolor pencils and loads of gloss to the pumpkins, puppy's nose and of course the cherry on top of the cupcake.

The patterned paper is from Die Cuts With a View... from the very first pad I ever bought: the Far East Mat Stack; The matting is gold foil - bottom panel is cut with a number of Spellbinders A2 Curved Borders dies, the Happy Birthday is a Memory Box Grand die.  I didn't have any ribbon matching the image or paper, so I coloured up some ivory ribbon with an E08 Copic I've got about a kilometre of this stuff left from my Son and DIL's (2009) wedding cake, to say I "over calculated" is an understatement of the century, lol. I made the bow using my new Bow maker; I looked up a couple of tutorials on YouTube, one made better bows... or perhaps it just made more sense to me.  I wasn't convinced the first couple of efforts, but I'm pretty glad I've got it now - at least the bows are consistent in size.

The inside of the card is finished in similar fashion, as usual.  I used Memory Box's Nottingham Border at the top of the card in place of the sentiment. In fact that's what I intended to do on the front; I didn't intend having the bottom panel on the front cut down so far, I've been drooling over Netty's cards for a while and was gong to shamelessly CASE one; having a large image panel with a fancy top edge... but the Nottingham border I was going to use on the top edge of the image panel just wouldn't cut, so the damn panel just kept getting shorter and shorter... in the end there was just too much patterned paper showing, it looked out of balance so I introduced the curved borders - at least I don't feel like it's a copy of Annette's now :-))

Anyhow, hope you get a chance to enter the challenge this fortnight; if you're into Halloween it shouldn't present any challenge at all.. but even if you're not, it's not that difficult to get a pumpkin into the mix - just add it to a picnic scene like I did, it's only "odd" if you think about it :-)  Great prize on offer as always, with extra opportunities if you use one of Di's oh-so-cute images.

Just by coincidence, it's my pet name for the grandkids... hence the title of this post; I sing to them "Pumpkin Pie, you are my, my Pumpkin Pie", they smile indulgently at me... they know they're not pies of any kind, but it makes Nanna happy to call them that, so they let me :-))

I'm entering the following challenges with this card:

Crazy 4 Challenges Autumn Colours

Crafty CardmakersAutumn Colours

Whimsy Inspirations Challenge Autumn Colours or Christmas (Autumn colours, obviously!)

Crafty Creations Don't be Blue (Don't use blue or a cheer me up card) (No blue here, even the sky is Warm Grey)

Aud Sentiments Birthday Sentiment

As You Like It  Pastels or Bright Colours and Why (Bright colours I suppose... I LOVE pastels, just can't seem to get them - I always add "just a bit more", pastel gone!)

The Crazy Challenge Orange and Green

Pile It On Fabric, Lace or Ribbon (Ribbon)

Addicted to  Stamps Bling Bling Glitter and Shine (All that gold foil, shines baby!)

Craft Your Passion Anything Goes

Through the Craftroom Door Anything Goes

Cute Card Thursday Anything Goes

Art by Miran Anything Goes

Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes 

Well I still haven't managed to drag anything out of my draft folder... maybe this week.  I've done all the End of Financial Year stuff, and the Quarterly returns - even for my son's business, and he's usually the last-minute-pull-your-hair-out client from hell.... but he's gone on holiday for a couple of weeks and they're due while he's away so he HAD to get the numbers to me before he went; it'll be the first one of his returns sent on time for quite a while, not sure what the Tax Office will make of that, lol.  
Until next time, happy crafting, Donna