PCW Terrific Tuesday Challenge: Harvest Time!

Happy Tuesday once again, my sweet friends! I hope your November is off to a beautiful start. :o)

It's my first Terrific Tuesday Challenge as a Paper Crafting World designer! I am honored. The theme this week is Harvest Time, with the option of creating any type of project. For even further inspiration, Melin has provided three optional sketches if you so choose to use them. :o)

The creative process can be interesting. I will be honest and say this began in a frazzled panic. This is one of my favorite themes, yet I was drawing blanks and everything felt wrong and forced. I tried to simplify (don't laugh... I AM trying to explore that side of me!), which ended up making things harder. I stepped back, cast aside what I was doing, and started fresh. I thought about what harvest means to me and from there, I finally had a card path that was clearer than mud. Victory!

"Harvest Blessings"

When I think of harvest, the most poignant meaning is a harvest of spiritual blessings. What stands out is not the blessing of fruits, vegetables, and grains... but rather sowing seeds of love, faith, hope, and joy to reap a harvest of blessings for others and for myself. To spend time planting tiny seeds whenever possible, whether the recipient realizes it or not... being a blessing above all else to be a representation of heaven. Every moment is an opportunity to sow the most important seeds of all... and in due time, all will be gathering a harvest of blessings. :o) Truly glorious.

My attempt to craftily capture this is focused upon this wonderful PCW birdcage and flowers digital stamp that I colored with Copics and trimmed in gold sparkles. Given the season, when I saw this I immediately thought pumpkin... so I colored it shades of orange and filled it with the heart-shaped seeds of love, faith, hope, and joy. I coated the seeds with Stardust to make them sparkle with the Lord's radiance. Extra love abounds when on this beautiful path, evidenced by the pretty plaid hearts that are ready to burst forth from the cage. The tiny seeds, properly nourished, have blossomed to overflowing, portrayed by the cascading flowers. I colored a few of them with Copics and also added a couple of Primas. Naturally all are anchored with a sparkle. The focal element is surrounded in a circle of sparkles because love is sparkly, after all. I used rhinestones of deep amber and a golden orange, then used one of my yellow Copics to color a few clear stones to get a third harvesty color in the mix. (Which was oddly entertaining.)

My card needed a sunflower, but without any on my carts I had to improvise. I layered two sizes of Prima daisies, cut out a circle of brown felt for the fuzzy center, and dotted it with gold Stickles. I used my favorite Martha Stewart border punch and some gorgeous Prairie Bird Boutique crinkle ribbon, so I was having all sorts of fun once I relaxed about the whole project. I love how embossing looks on chocolate browns, so that was actually the first thing I did to set the stage for a happy harvest of blessings. :o)

Be sure to skip on over to the PCW challenge post to check out the fabulous creations by the rest of the Design Team! I hope you'll link up with us this week, too! I'd love to see what you create for this beautiful harvest time. :o) Thank you for dancing on by to see me! Have a sparkly day. :o)

Key Recipe Components:
 * Cricut cartridges: Elegant Edges
 * Cuttlebug embossing folder: Victoria
 * Paper: Bo Bunny, stash
 * Spellbinders Nestabilities: Labels Four
 * Stamp: Paper Crafting World~ Birdcage and Flowers
 * Copics: YR01, YR12 ('pumpkin' birdcage); YG11, YG13, YG17 (vines); Y13, Y15, V, 12, V15, V17 (flowers)
 * Ribbon: Prairie Bird Boutique
 * Flowers: Prima
 * Border Punch: Martha Stewart Doily Lace
 * Miscellaneous: Brenda Walton rhinestones, Stickles