Every fall I love to send my grandchildren gift baskets and I always include a special handmade fall card made just for them.
My first card I made for my oldest grandson Atticus. I thought the little boy resembled Atticus so much.
To make this card I used a vintage stamp set from a retired company called "Crafty Secrets". I managed to buy a lot of their stamp sets before the company went out of business knowing how hard these vintage images are to find.
I created a scene by stamping grass on to plain white card stock. The boy, the pumpkins, and the wagon are all popped up on dimensionals. I stamped them, colored them in, then cut them out. The sentiment, frog, and leaves are stamped directly on the card stock.
My next card went to my youngest grandson, Elisha. For this one, I just glued a fall print onto brown card stock and adhered it to a white card base. I cut a scalloped circle of brown card stock and a coordinating fall print using circle dies and a Cuttlebug machine. The turkey was made with a stamp from the Dollar Bin at a fabric and craft store.
I cut a piece of tan solid card stock and stamped the sentiment onto that and glued it to the card.
I added google eyes to the turkey because I thought Elisha would get a kick out of that, then I added some fall leaves for embellishment.
My final card was made for my granddaughter, Alethea. This image was found on the Internet and I simply printed it onto white card stock and colored it in. You can find so many cute images on the Internet for free, that one really doesn't need to purchase stamps anymore.
Because this card was made for a girl, I used brown sparkle card stock as a border. The sentiment was from another stamp set. I stamped that onto separate card stock, used a corner edger to get creative corners, then glued it to a piece of sparkly gold card stock.
Ageless Style is a monthly style challenge and link up for women of all ages. Each month we pick a different theme and style an outfit based on that theme. This month's theme is "What to Wear to a Birthday Party" and was picked by Marsha!
This month, our challenge theme is "What to Wear to a Birthday Party" in honor of our fellow member's birthday this month: Marsha! Happy Birthday Martha!
To celebrate Marsha's birthday I wore a new-to-me fall dress, because Marsha is a dress-kinda-gal!
I've been trying to shop at more boutiques lately because I want to both support small businesses and support businesses that have the same values as me. After all, why give my hard working dollars to companies that promote agendas I disagree with? Both the dress and the cardigan were purchased from businesses that I agree with.
I purchased the dress last year from Mustard Boutique. They had an amazing end-of-year sale where all their dresses were priced $25.00. I had to buy it on-line without even trying in on and knowing it was non-refundable. But I know my body well enough to know what styles look good on me, and I'm basically a size Medium in everything, so it all worked out just fine. I never got a chance to wear it until now, because it was too cold to wear it in the winter and too warm to wear in the summer because of the long sleeves. Yet, it is the PERFECT fall dress for the sleeve weight and fabric is just right for fall weather, and the neutral print and style scream "fall".
My cardigan is from another small company called Carly Jean Los Angeles. The style is the trendy, new cropped cardigan that sits right at your waist. This style is hot, hot, hot right now! If you buy only one new clothing item this fall, I would suggest a cropped cardigan.
I was so hesitant to try this new cardigan style because I didn't think it would do my body style any favors, but once I tried it on, I really like it and favor it over the more longer length cardigan.
Felt hats have been around for awhile, but they also seem really hot this fall season, so if you're up to buying two new trendy items this year, I would add a felt hat to your list. I have two: this one in dark brown and a black one, but I'd love to get a tan one too!
I completed my birthday outfit with a brown handbag and neutral booties.
And in case you're wondering what the dress looks like underneath the cardigan, I braved the cold for a few minutes for this photo!
And the one below was taken indoors, where it is much warmer to be without a cardigan 😀 You can see how the sleeves have an elastic cuff and that they are very loose and flowing.
Now to be sure to link up your outfits with us below and stop by and see what all the other ladies in the group are wearing too! And don't forget to wish Marsha a "Happy Birthday"!
Every holiday I love to make a gift basket for my grandchildren. This year I had some small odds and ends I wanted to throw in the basket but not get lost, so I decided to put those in separate fabric treat bags. If you're a sewer like me, you probably have enough fabric in your house to open your own fabric store. I already had some cute Halloween fabric so creating treat bags was quick and easy!
To make my treat bags I followed this tutorial HERE! I also made my own tags using a tag die and some fall stamps.
My granddaughter is a little skittish, so I kept her bag and tag more generic and just used Halloween colors, but for my grandson, I used a fabric with some friendly spiders and his tag is more spooky.
A few weeks ago we drove down to my daughter's home in Indiana to celebrate Labor Day and my youngest grandson's second birthday. Elisha LOVES trains, so I made him this card.
To make this card, I used a retired Stampin' Up! set "Circus Train". This is just the cutest set! I love all the images in this set, so I had to enlarge the card just so I could use all of them. I stamped all the images separately, colored them in, and popped them up on dimensionals. I hand drew the train tracks. I stamped the "Toot, Toot!" directly onto the card using a alphabet stamp set. The happy birthday is a die cut made with an MFT die. I cut two "happy birthday"'s out so I could create a shadow. The clouds are an MFT die too. I popped the clouds up on dimensionals too.
And here are some photos and a video of Elisha's sweet little birthday party. He didn't know what to think of his flaming piece of cake. And his favorite gift of all was the motorcycle. He said "Cool!" when he saw it. 😂
Every weekend in fall, my husband and I like to travel around the state of Wisconsin in search of fall color. For our first weekend, we drove all the way up north and into the UP to see some color. If you missed that post, you can find it HERE. This past weekend, we drove two hours east to Wausau, Wisconsin where the colors were reported at 55%.
Just like the weekend before, it rained. It didn't rain all summer, but Mother Nature decides to rain everyday and every weekend in the fall. 😢. We decided to make the best of it and just readjusted our plans as we knew it would clear up a bit in the afternoon.
Downtown Wausau
Since it was raining, we decided to tour downtown Wausau. I've seen pretty pictures of their historic downtown and always wanted to check it out, so nows my chance.
Wausau has a small, maybe 2-3 block historic area. There are mostly dining establishments, and a few clothing stores, so we didn't pop into any of them except the one below: "Evolution in Design".
This was the coolest store ever! I was mostly enamored with the decor of the store than their products. I loved walking around checking every little nook and cranny. It appeared to be an old store front house built in the late 1800's...
Every section of this store is intricately and creatively decorated from the painted floors all the way up to the painted ceilings.
After exploring the downtown shops we headed into the nearby neighborhood as we kept seeing so many gorgeous old churches in the distance.
The neighborhood has huge, mature trees bursting in color!
The Town Square had a fabulous modern bandshell.
The many restaurants had lots of outdoor dining options.
The clerk at the "Evolutions in Design" store told us to stop in "Sugar' n Spice" because they had great cheesecake. I was so thrilled she recommended this place, because this was not only the best cheesecake I've had in my life, but it was also the best dessert I ever had in my life.
The stores sell large cheesecake cupcakes for around $6.00 each or mini ones for $1.50 each. We chose a large chocolate cheesecake cupcake and split it. It was AMAZING!
The decor of this sweet shop was amazing too. I just loved how glamorous it was! I told my husband, if I am ever in Wausau again, I will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS stop here for cheesecake!
It was still raining so we stopped for lunch. I picked "Red Eye Brewing Company" because it was rated Wausau's #1 restaurant on Trip Advisor. It's an "Artisan Food" restaurant, so all the food on the menu was "Weird". I absolutely loved it, but my meat and potatoes husband was out of his comfort zone. When it came time to order, he decided not to order anything and the waitress could tell why so she said "We have pizza too", to which I replied "Yes, but they are all weird to him too", then she kindly said, "We could make any pizza you want". So then hubby's eyes lit up and said "How about just plain pepperoni and sausage?" and once they brought that out to him, and not any weird ingredient pizzas, he was happy. 😀
I ordered a "Fried Chicken BLT" and it was delicious!
Wausau River Walk
After lunch, the rain finally subsided so we headed over the Wisconsin River to do the riverwalk. I have no idea how many miles this riverwalk is, but let me tell you, it is HUGE. We couldn't even do it in one day (but we could have been a little worn out from walking downtown all morning) so we broke it up in two chunks. We did the walk starting from Bridge Street, through the entire Whitewater Park, plus Brunet Island...then we had to walk all the way back to our car...so it was a lot of walking. You can bike on this river walk, but we wanted to see all the islands too, and that would have been difficult to do with bikes.
At the start of the riverwalk near bridge street was this beautiful canopied viewing deck of the Wisconsin River.
On the opposite side was this pedestrian bridge that had the loveliest waterfall. I've never seen anything like this before. We thought it was so pretty.
There are multiple bridges on this walk that take you across to three islands which have trails and points of historic interest. The first island we visited was Barker Stewart Island. Here we learn this island was where they stored all the lumber back in the sawmill/lumber days when they used the Wisconsin River to haul the wood down river.
Our next stop on the river walk was the White Water Park. Oh my gosh! This place was amazing! I've never seen anything like it before! It's a professional racing course for canoe and kayaking. It was so much fun watching these brave men and women hone their craft.
Hubby watching the kayakers from the deck above.
I couldn't believe this course for kayakers to practice and compete was located right in the heart of a small city. Be sure to check out the video at the end of this post to see them in action.
When the railroad tracks were built in Wausau, they stopped moving lumber via the Wisconsin river.
After watching the kayakers for a while, we started walking back on the river walk. It continued into a lovely paved path through the woods, with the Wisconsin River on our right.
By now, we were getting pretty sore and tired and realized we had to walk all the way back to our car, so we decided to call it a day and see the second half of the river walk tomorrow.
Picnic Island
The next morning the sun was out! We were so excited! We hadn't seen the sun in over a week. We headed over to "Riverside Park" to hike the end of the river walk we missed the day before. We hiked the trail again for just a bit before a bridge took us to "Picnic Island".
This was such a quiet, beautiful little island. We loved how the colorful foliage of the trees was mirrored in the water.
Oak Park
Next we jumped back in our car again (are you noticing how long this trail is if we keep having to jump back in our car?) and drove to Oak Park, from here we crossed another bridge to the "Isle of Ferns Island"
This island had the most beautiful bridge of them all! It was made of stone and just dripped with moss.
There is a trail that goes all the way around the island, which we took. It was rustic, and we see how the island got its name as there were a lot of ferns.
Rib Mountain State Park
After we finished the Wausau River Walk we headed over to Rib Mountain State Park. Of course we had to climb their insanely tall viewing tower to see the surrounding landscape filled with fall color.
Rib Mountain has so many rocks and boulders. Tourists love to climb them.
We only took one hike, the "Red Trail" as we were short on time. It led us to another beautiful lookout.
Hubby enjoying some of the parks large rock formations.
After we finished the "Red Trail" we got back in our vehicle to head home. We had been to this park many times before that's why we kind just popped in this day to see the fall colors. You can read about our other adventures to this park HERE and HERE.
And now, be sure to watch the video below to see this amazing whitewater course right in downtown Wausau, Wisconsin!
