Gorgeous Gus 🦉

Hi everyone, I’m feeling really excited today, as I have finally completed the last outstanding page on my Lavinia 2025 calendar - November. As regular visitors to my blog will know, I started work on this calendar in October last year, and by the time the New Year rolled round I had completed 5 of the 12 pages, though not in order (I completed them as the fancy took me!) Anyway I have been gradually tackling the rest since then, and at last it is finished!

I wanted to make a late autumnal scene: originally I intended to do a stag in an autumnal forest but somehow I just couldn’t visualise it, so I decided to make a scene instead featuring Gus the gorgeous owl, partly because my husband loves owls - so here it is.

I cut a piece of card 19.5cm x 14.5cm and stamped Gus, then masked his feet and stamped the vine branch. I masked both owl and tree and also used a circle mask, then blended Sahara and Russet Orange Elements inks over the background. I removed the masks then coloured Gus and the branch with Zig pens. I stamped some background autumn wording over the sun, cedar branches hanging in the top corner, toadstools in the bottom right corner and fallen leaves, which I also coloured with my Zigs. I added a little bird sitting on the branch then added white Posca highlights and edged the whole scene with Vintage Photo Distress Ink to add some depth, before attaching the finished panel onto my calendar page. Finally I decided to take a chance and add some Glossy Accents to Gus’s eyes, as my Glossy Accents has weirdly gone a bit discoloured - luckily he didn’t end up looking like he’d got cataracts!

Stamps: Lavinia Gus, Vine Branch, Elfin Cap Cluster, Cedar, Oak Leaf Flourish, Bird Collection, Slender Mushrooms Mini, Winter Spice;

Media: Lavinia Elements inks (Sahara, Russet Orange); Tim Holtz Distress ink (Vintage Photo); Versafine Clair (Nocturne, Pinecone, Sand Dune); Kuretake Zig Clean Color Watercolour pens; Sakura Stardust pen (yellow); Posca pen (white); Glossy Accents. 

Challenges I would like to enter:

Classic Design Challenge #9 2025 - Anything Goes with option Trees and/or Leaves (3rd entry)

Country View Crafts FB Challenge (October) - Heavenly Bodies

Craft Rocket #130 - Autumn/Hallowe’en

Crafty Catz #702 - Anything Goes 

Creative Moments #275 - Things With Wings

Daisy Chain #101 - Autumn and/or Hallowe’en

Fab ‘n’ Funky #623 - Colours of Autumn

Four Seasons (October) - Anything Goes Fall

Girlz Rebel #45 - Mushrooms

Let’s Craft and Create #224 - Things With Wings 

Love to Craft #88 - Anything Goes (3rd entry)

Love to Scrap #175 - Anything Goes (3rd entry)

Mix It Up #79 - Anything Goes (3rd entry)

Outlawz Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone (October) - Anything but a Card

Papercraft #122 - Amazing Autumn (2nd entry)

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Bright and Colourful

Sisterhood of Crafters - Anything Fall

Triple B (October) - Birds, Butterflies and/or Blooms

Unicorn #114 - Autumn and/or Hallowe’en 

Word Art Wednesday #720/721 - Anything Goes

Now that I have finally completed this mega project, I thought I’d like to have a little recap of the whole calendar in date (rather than creation) order - if you click on the links they will take you to my original posts with full details of how I made each page. 

January

February

March

April

May

 June

July

August

September

October

November (this post)

December

This has been the biggest crafting project I have ever done by a country mile - I reckon over the year it has probably taken 40+ hours. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, though I thought after all that effort I couldn’t commit to doing it again for 2026.  However I was lucky enough to win a challenge prize from Country View Crafts, so guess what I picked?? I just couldn’t help myself, and my 2026 calendar dropped through the letterbox on Monday! cycle begins again ….

Take care, and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,