Thanksgiving Therapy

 Hello, hope you are all well. I've got a 7.5-inch square collage for you today that I made as a sort of art therapy talisman for Honey and me to remember, celebrate and honor our Thanksgiving family gatherings, since on Thursday in the USA it's Thanksgiving Day.

I think it finally hit me that we won't be all together with family at the holidays. My emotional mind had been in denial. I know from reading other blogs I'm not alone in this by a long shot -- we must do what we must to stay safe. I was going to make another Turkey Day card but ended up caving to my feelings. And it's been helping. I expect I'll be needing to look at it this week a lot. Honey likes it very much, too.

  

So my materials for this project began in my stash, for just about everything I've used. I've had a set of repositionable Thanksgiving stickers (what was I thinking buying repositionable stickers?????) and a colorful turkey I had saved from junk mail in my theme box forever, so I pulled those out. I added an unused piece of gold vellum that I had dry-embossed for my last project (here it reminds me of those old vintage embossed ceiling tiles!), and some vintage 70's decorative fabric seam binding from my mom's ribbon inheritance. For my base I pulled two of my Graphics 45 paper pad chipboard backings, cut them to size and glued them together so that the pretty paper patterns would show on both sides. But they are glossy so I gave each a quick workout with my sanding block, leaving delicious worn streaks and faded areas. I guess that's a form of distressing, eh? 

Since I wanted to participate in TFJB's current challenge Bright Colours (see challenges below), I chose to use the little vintage collage sheet image at lower left, which was a freebie TJFB sent me with one of my orders. While it doesn't portray an entire family, it reminds me very much of our dear daughter in years past at the table with her cousins, and the colors are a good match, too! 

This was pretty straightforward as to process. The most time spent was on all those words. Because the word stickers are repositionable, I used a gluestick to adhere to the yellow paper strips and then ran a Promarker around each word strip. I made the 4 long outer perimeter strips first and then cut apart the rest of the words. I added some little leaves at the turkey's feet that were alcohol-inked on glossy paper and punched out, leftover from a previous project.

I added some stash sequins and then filled each center with Viva Decor Pearl Pens in various colors.

After fussy-cutting this turkey, I ran a black chisel tip Promarker around it. Then, I got out my Carbon Desk Fountain Pen and outlined all of the interior lines on him to help him stand out properly. My final step was running the Promarker chisel tip around the entire piece.

But wait! There's more, lol. As I often do, I decorated the back as well! I was just going to add the outside lines, but then it looked like it needed something in the middle and of course I had a few leftover word strips from the front.

   

I used 2 different washi tapes around the perimeter: a wide graph-paper design and then some really cool cooking utensil washi bought exactly for this kind of project so I had to use it. 

The center oval element was cut with a Spellbinders Hem Stitch Oval Chantilly Paper Lace die. I used a Burnt Orange Promarker on the outside edge, a Pumpkin Promarker to color the pumpkin and a light Peachy Saffron Promarker to color-fill the interior. I should have colored first, then stamped and heat-embossed. Instead I did the opposite and a little black ink smeared in places from the marker, even after I heat-embossed! Oh well, every piece of art's got a near-death tale to tell, right? Still using it! haha

Love this Neat and Tangled sentiment stamp! And the distressed sanded base peeking out. 

And a final view of the front. I can truly say this was indeed Thanksgiving Therapy. Our dear daughter and son-in-love&law messaged us yesterday to thank us for their Thanksgiving card we mailed them and I sent them a pic of this. We had a wonderful time reminiscing about favorite foods, movies, and fun we've had on this holiday over the years. And we will do it again on Thursday! We are indeed blessed!

Thanks for dropping by and letting me share with you. I hope you have a good week, good holidays if you celebrate, and are staying safe and warm and well!

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:

1.   TFJB Challenge 11/11-11/24: Celebrate! -- (10 challenges max) I am celebrating, remembering, honoring our tradition of Thanksgiving family gatherings and have used bright colors.

2.   Art Journal Journey Nov: Birds -- Joining in Wendy K's challenge theme with the most famous November bird of all LOL ;-)

3.   The Three Muses Challenge: Birds

5.   Country View Challenge Nov: Anything But a Card

6.   Outlawz Twisted Thursdays 11/19-25: AG + Opt. Twist: Create Your Own -- Option played - my twist is sequins

7.   The Crafter's Cafe #255: Embossing, Wet or Dry -- Dry (gold diamond-shaped vellum layer) (Entry#3/5 and 11 Challenges Max)

8.   ModSquad Challenge: Thanksgiving Turkey

9.   613 Avenue Create November: AG + Opt. Twist Cute Critters -- Option played! I think my turkey is pretty cute!

10. The Paper Girls #212: Thankful/Grateful