RRCB98 Harvest Delight

Happy Tuesday, everyone!  It's time for this October's last Retro Rubber Challenge, and here is our prompt:

Isn't that pretty?  SO many inspirations here!  I chose the basket and the pumpkins, and thought I would try my hand at the October CAS Watercolor challenge of orange, green and brown as well:

I've had this Close to My Heart fall set since 2016 but in my research, I think it came out around 2011!  Before stamping, I loosely colored some watercolor paper with Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive and Granny Apple Green inks, drying it between colors with my heat tool.  I then stamped the image with Soft Suede and Versamark inks, using my Stamparatus to stamp the brown ink first, then after cleaning the stamp but leaving it on the plate, inking and stamping with Versamark.  I then heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.   

I added some more color in certain areas, to give it depth, and I actually took my finger and rubbed the ink around the edges for texture!  That really brought out the grain of the watercolor paper and gave it an organic look!

I added a banner with a sentiment, some green perle cotton, then matted it with some Early Espresso and popped it up on a Crumb Cake mat that was embossed with the Basketweave EF:

Although my fingers were green and orange when I finished, it was a fun card to make!  I hope you'll get some inspiration from our pretty photo and play along with us this week at Retro Rubber!  Remember, your stamps have to be at least a year old and you must tell us how old they are!  Check out the other samples at our blog and share yours too!  Give those older stamps some love!

So one of our friends and church members is a farm manager at The Farm at Doe Run, which is a lovely farm near us; Josh kindly lent us the farm's apple press where everyone got in the act of making cider at the Harvest Party on Saturday!  Even our dear friend John, the one-armed man (cancer) could toss the big apples into the press:

As Josh cranked the wheel, the apples, seeds, cores and skin, all got mashed up and the juices started to flow:

Then he took off the grinder and set up the press; his son Avery got first dibs at turning the crank, which in turn, pressed the apples down even harder!  If you look closely, you can see the juice flowing out into the bowl at the bottom:

(Cassidy was not in the least bit interested in this, so you won't see her anywhere!  She was busy teaching two of her little friends her latest karate moves!!!)  Anyway, the kids who wanted to, all got a chance to turn the press:

I can honestly say it was the best cider I ever drank!  There was even enough left over for Sunday School fellowship time!  Yum!  Thanks for popping in today...enjoy it and be blessed!