We have had our first plant killing snowfall of the year.   As usual, we all winge and moan about how crazy it is that snow came so early, when in fact it does this every year.  In fact, the rarity is if we don’t get a September snowfall.  What this inevitable snowfall does for me is to get me thinking about Arizona and my upcoming trip down south again.

Right now, Phoenix is in the middle of the Scrapbook Expo, and so, I wish I was there.  Also this week, I signed up for a number of classes for Creativation in January, so the excitement for the winter season in Arizona is rising.

The challenge this month for the Phoenix Papercrafters group is Southwest/cactus.  Recently, I made some cards using a paint dragging technique (inspiration from a Jennifer McGuire video).  This technique really lends itself to the Southwest colours/desert sunset type of background and so I decided to combine that with some stamps/dies from Scraps of Love and Concord and 9th.

The paint dragging technique is super easy to do, but oh so difficult to have it end up just like you envisioned it.  That is part of the charm of the technique……………………….you have to give up control………………….and embrace some of the weird parts to make it work.   Actually, what I did was keep on thinking that the NEXT one IS going to turn out just like I envisioned it until I had eleven sunset backgrounds drying all over my house.

In the end, I loved all of the cards and the not quite what I envisioned backgrounds.  Take a look:

Sook, this one is from Moab, Utah but still Southwestern in theme.