The Forgotten Squirrel: Hello Autumn, Where Have You Been?

Every now and then I pick something up from my craft desk and have absolutely no recollection of putting it there, or really even why it’s there.

This card was one of those things.

It had been sitting rather lonely in a pile on one of my desks. And yes, I said one of them. I have four desks in my craft space, which you might think would mean I have four times the room.

It does not.

It means I have four separate surfaces on which to create piles.

When I finally rescued this little squirrel from his paper-pile purgatory, I remembered making the card. Sort of. I couldn't tell you exactly when I made it or what else was happening at the time, but I did remember that part of the plan was to play with the Hello Autumn digital bundle from Polkadoodles.

And apparently I finished the card and then promptly abandoned the poor fellow on a desk.

Life happens.

Between coloring with markers, making bracelets, playing with beads, filling orders and all the other creative things currently competing for my attention, there is also the pesky daily grind. Laundry. Errands.

And then there's dinner.

Every. Single. Day.

Does anyone else get tired of dreaming up what culinary event is supposed to magically appear on the table every evening? Didn't we just eat dinner yesterday?

Actually, hold that thought, because I have a fabulous, ridiculously easy marinara sauce recipe that deserves its own post.

See? This is how my brain works.

Squirrel → dinner → marinara sauce → pasta.

We'll come back to that.

Back to the Actual Squirrel

The Hello Autumn bundle is packed with sweet fall characters, seasonal patterned papers and sentiments, and this mischievous little squirrel was too cute not to colour.

I used my Copic markers and pulled colours from the plaid digital paper so the squirrel, leaves and acorns would feel like they belonged with the background rather than simply sitting on top of it. And I will almost always find an excuse to use plaid paper. Fall and plaid are basically craft-room best friends.

I also clipped two opposite corners of the card base to give the finished card a slightly different shape. It's such a tiny change, but it's a good reminder that you don't always need another embellishment to make a card more interesting. Sometimes changing the shape of a corner, shifting a panel or trimming something differently is enough.

And then there's the sentiment.

BAD TO THE BONE.

Look at his face.

That squirrel is casually dropping an acorn from a tree branch. We don't know what's underneath him. We don't know who is underneath him.

But I have questions.

A Little Takeaway From the Forgotten Pile

Finding this card again was actually a nice reminder to go back through the things we've already made.

Creative people are forever looking toward the next thing—the next project, new supplies, another technique, another pile of beads that absolutely needed to come home with us. Meanwhile, some pretty great projects quietly disappear underneath whatever we're currently excited about.

Pull them back out.

Photograph them. Share them. Look at the colour combination you used. Notice a layout you'd forgotten about. Maybe you'll find an idea worth using again.

Not everything has to be brand new to be worth sharing.

Sometimes it just needs to be rescued from a desk.

And now, apparently, we need to talk about marinara sauce.

Because naturally that's where the squirrel led us.