iseecerulean

Kate and I are going to Paris next June!

Whoo hoo!

I'm so excited.

I googled images of a pumpkin patch...in some of the pictures the leaves are really droopy, but in others they're not droopy at all...it depends on how badly their garden needs to be watered, I suppose.

I decided my leaves needed some shape to them to appear more realistic.  I dipped them in water, draped them over the edge of a cork, pinned them in place, then let them dry.  Once they were dry I glued them to a piece of paper covered wire. 

I may adjust the shape once they're in place, this is just my starting point.

My leaves are a much lighter color than any I've seen in pictures, but a darker green would get lost inside the big pumpkin.  I thought about painting them, but I don't want them to be all exactly the same color...too uniform means less character.  I also thought about painting the pumpkins, because I didn't like the speckles, but now the look is kind of growing on me.  Besides which, the species Cucurbita ickyspeckle has lighter colored leaves...

I googled images for pumpkin leaves (I never realized they were so big), decided on an "average" shape, then made a pattern and cut some out of a natural fiber paper.  I've got no idea how many I'm going to need, I may have to cut out more.  I tried to find a punch at the scrapbook store, but they're out of business.  I could just cry every time another small businessman trying to make it on his own goes under.

The cornstalks have been attached to toothpicks, dyed with coffee, and arranged...they're ready to go in.

I started on the pumpkins too...tore out the brown plastic stems and inserted my own green paper-wrapped wire ones, so that I can have vines.

As soon as I figure out what a little pumpkin patch looks like, I'll start putting the stuff inside the big pumpkin.

And messy too, there are yucky glue boogers everywhere...I'm going to have to clean before I can go on to the next step.

My husband is a lasagna genius!

I'm going to try to dip it in tea to make it the right color.  Hmm...maybe I'll use coffee instead, since I've got a cup in front of me and won't make tea until this afternoon.

I used some ivory colored paper twist stuff to make this one.  The directions called for raffia, but this was already in my stash...It's the same roll of paper twist I bought to make angel ornaments for my first Christmas tree nineteen years ago...back when I was broke and made my own ornaments because I had to, not because I wanted to.  Obviously I had no idea exactly how much was on a roll...I'm not sure I'll use it all before I die.

I've still got a couple of those ornaments, though I don't hang them on the tree anymore.  Remind me in December, when I get the Christmas decorations out, to show you.

I think I'm going to get the Halloween decorations out this weekend.  The leaves are starting to turn colors, the stores are selling caramel apples, and it's starting to feel like autumn.  I love autumn.

I had thoughts of putting in a pumpkin field, or a corn and pumpkin field, but I think that might be too much...I'm not sure.  Maybe I should put in moss covered with fallen leaves. 

Another thought was to put a 3-D paper cut-out of a haunted house like this on the back wall...with maybe a tree line on the horizon...but I'm afraid that it would make the whole thing look less artsy, more craftsy...plus it might be skewing with scale too much.

I just don't know...I'm still feeling a tad bit under the weather, which makes me whiney, grumpy, and indecisive.  It also makes my husband spoil me rotten, so I guess it's not all bad.  Last night he came home from work with a metal jack-o-lantern 'bag' filled with chocolate chip cookies..."just because".

Kate caught my cooties, she didn't go to Aikido last night...said she didn't want to sneeze snotty germs all over the mats and make everyone else sick...I told her I was sure they didn't want that either.  Susan caught my cooties too...I must have sneezed on the modem.

Sigh...somebody tell me what to do with this pumpkin!

I decided not to use the roses.  The focal point of the piece is supposed to be the tree, and the roses were their own focal point...the piece isn't big enough for two focal points.  I decided the urn had to be filled with neutral colored material, like the baby's breath.  I went for a walk, came home with various dead plant life, then used thistle to fill out the urn.  After I glued it in place I didn't like it...it was still too much of it's own focal point...so I squished it down some (which is when I took the picture).  I still didn't like it, so I tore it all out, to leave the urn unplanted.  I filled it with moss, glued some baby's breath flower heads on top of that, then added some fallen leaves.  Now I really like it...it fits.

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The leaves were a brainstorm I had when I was planning to use the roses...to scatter some more red throughout the piece.  The red (same red as the roses) and copper colored leaves are painted tissue paper, and the brown leaves are punched from real maple leaves out of my back yard.  I used a maple leaf shaped paper punch.  The real leaves turned out awesome.  I wonder if they're close to 1/12 scale?  Once the maple drops colored leaves I could punch a bunch out to either give away or sell on etsy...I'll have to measure them.