Cards from leaves and twigs. . .

Now, about that camping trip!!! My hubby was not so very pleased to see the sorts of things that I was carefully packing into the motor home before our extended vacation to the Yellowstone area last week. While he was packing camping gear, tools, utensils, food and other sorts of survival gear, I came out of the house carrying a ginormous rubbermaid tote filled with paper, glue and glitter. (Hey, we are talking survival here!) I carefully moved my mobile scrap station into the Shag Wagon (named so for the long orange / brown shag carpet that decorates the walls of our 1970's era camper extraordinaire!) and grinned all the way down the road to Island Park - a mere 90 miles from our back door.

Hubby just sort of shook his head in disdain at my choice of essential camping gear. . . he is used to this sort of thing. I did camp for a few days without scrapping, but on the third day or so, I decided that it was card day. I got some pretty crazy looks as hubby and the in-laws all geared up and rode off on the 4-wheelers, leaving me alone at camp with the bears and my beloved tote full of paper and glue spread out all over the camp table. . . under the awning of the motor home.

What a fantastic day it was . . to say the least! Complete quiet and seclusion. . . nothing but me and the fresh air and the squirrels and the pine cones and the paper and glitter and buttons and ribbons and pine cones and . . .  it was then that it hit me that Richard's last words were, "Did you bring enough stuff along or are you going to scrap with the pine cones and twigs?" Eureka! The man is smarter than I give him credit for. . . and I did indeed set off to find the perfect camping embellishments for my autumn / Halloween creations.

Fist of all, I found these little pine twigs, perfect for this scary little Halloween bat to hang from. There were also billions of these teeny little pine cone things littering the ground. I found a few cute ones and adhered them to the branch. I even picked up some and stored them for later for using on other cards. I ignored the dirty looks from the squirrels while doing so.

There were also loads of pine cones in every shape and size to be found - all perfect just for the picking. . . and free! What is better than free scrapbooking embellishments??? It took me a little while to whittle the end of this pine cone down to a flat surface. I made an owl, for Grandma Bonnie who really, really loves owls. I think that she will love this card too. His ears are also those little pine cone things, and his beak is a little piece of an orange leaf that I found.

If I thought that the looks that I got from everyone when they left camp were strange, you should have seen the ones when they got back and I was squealing over my pine cone cards. Best of all were the hugs from the family, and the words, "You're crazy, but we love you anyway."   ^_^   Now that is what camping is all about. I can't wait to go again next year!