Take Time to Enjoy the Apples

One of my favorite seasons is Autumn, I love the cooler temperatures, the vivid colors, the changing of the seasons. It is my busy time of the year going to my art shows where I get to show and sell my  artwork. One of my favorite poets is Robert Frost, and Nothing Gold Can Stay, is the inspiration for this project:

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

 

 Supplies:  Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts-Leafy Swirl, Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts-Leaves and Flourish Set, Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts-Fanciful Elements, Wooden Tray, Tim Holtz Distress Sprays in Autumn Hues, Crackle Stamp, StazOn Saddle Brown Ink, Decorative Scrapbook Paper in Autumnal Theme, Heating Tool, Scissors, Green Gold and Antique Gold Acrylic Paint, Blending Tool, Weldbond, DecoArt DuraClear Matte Varnish,

1.  Stain wooden tray using Tim Holtz Distress Sprays of Wild Honey and Tea Dye.

2.   Once dry use a crackle stamp or GSLC foam stamp with StazOn Saddle Ink to age wooden tray.

3.  Coat with Matte Varnish to seal in stains.

4.  Choose GSLC embellishments-I am using Leafy Swirl, Leaves and Flourish Set, and Fanciful Elements.

5.  Randomly spray GSLC cuts embellishments with Tim Holtz Distress Sprays in autumnal colors.

6.  Spritz with rubbing alcohol and water to further distress and age your embellishments. Cure with a heating tool.

7.  Add other layers of color by dry brushing with green gold  and antique gold acrylic paint.

 

8.  Choose pictures for your tray, fussy cut if you like.

9.  Distress edges with blending tool and StazOn Saddle Brown Ink.

10.                Assemble Tray by adding a decorative piece of paper to bottom of wooden tray using Weldbond.

11.                Continue to add to your tray by using Weldbond to attach your autumn pictures and GSLC embellishments.

12. To add aging and patina add rust pastes in green hues.

13.                Once dry cover entire wooden tray with Matte Varnish to seal everything into place.

Some final thoughts.

It's not too late to enjoy an autumn picnic or at least a

hot toddy or hard cider out in the crisp evening air using your autumnal tray. The tray is decorative enough to hang and is even reversible.

Another of Robert Frost Poems that has inspired me to live a life worth living:   

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.