So far, this autumn has been like the summer it follows: damp. Oh, there have been the odd few days when it’s been at least dry enough to put the washing outside.

But it so far is shaping up to be a bit of dreary autumn.

Which is a shame, because autumn colours, all those reds and yellows and oranges, are so beautiful, especially with sunshine on them.

And because I haven’t been able to take Tiny leaf-hopping yet (admittedly, we’re not quite at that stage in development anyway), or been able to enjoy golden autumnal afternoons in the park, I’ve been making do with autumnal colours in the craft-room.

It helps that now I’m back into Birthday Season.

I dug out all my autumnal stamp and die sets – amazing how many I’ve collected over the not-as-many-years-as-I-think. It’s an easy theme; they come out most years, and I’m a bit of a sucker for them.

I struggled a bit with inspiration for them, even with the magazines to give me suggestions. But I found a suggestion from Pootles Papercraft for an easy fancy-fold card, which I liked and can’t believe I hadn’t previously thought of it myself. I expect I’ll be using it more often, and trying other variations on it.

All you do is take a normal card base, and then score a line down the centre of the front of the card. So simple, so easy. Ideally, you’d then have the sentiment, or a focal image, stretching over the back of the card, but I was using up scraps, which fitted neatly on the space available. So I die-cut a couple of leaves for the bottom corner instead.

I find, though, that I like the sentiments with some of these stamp sets more than the images. Makes it a bit more difficult to decide whether I want to keep them or not.