Two Ways With Trees

In between working on DT projects I thought I’d make some just-for-fun cards that I could enter into the current Twofer challenge. I’ve played along with this challenge a couple of times before and it’s so much fun. I really want to try and play along every time, but I don’t always manage to find the time. I did this time though! And actually I have another couple of ideas too, so maybe I’ll manage to play along another time before the challenge closes.

Card 1 – Happy Day Trees

My first card is a very clean and simple design. I started by stamping my sentiment piece, which is from Lawn Fawn’s Ready, Set, Shake. The stamp is slightly curved, so after placing it in my MISTI (Alt|MFT) I carefully straightened it before stamping with MFT Black Licorice Hybrid ink.

I then took the largest tree stamp from Lawn Fawn’s Lovable Legends and positioned it above my sentiment in my MISTI and stamped a row of four using Altenew Evergreen ink. I moved across three quarters of an inch at a time to get even spacing between each tree.

I moved the stamp back between my first two trees and stamped with a lighter green ink, which is Forest Glades. I mismeasured the gap on the third tree so it’s slightly out of alignment, but the difference is small enough that I didn’t think it was worth starting over.

I then took the smaller tree stamp from the same stamp set, and stamped a line of those using Frayed Leaf ink, which is another step lighter. I stamped the smaller trees at intervals of three eights of an inch, which worked nicely.

I felt the white through the gaps in the trees, once my stamping was complete, was a bit stark, so I took an ink blending sponge that I’d previously used with green ink and very lightly blended across the trees without adding any extra ink.

Going back to my sentiment I took some brown Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers and used those to colour it in. I went darkest on either end and lighter towards the centre. I also used my lightest grey pen to add a shadow on the edges of the sign to give the impression of dimension.

Card 2 – Woodsy Christmas

For my second card I was originally planning on creating a wreath of trees. I cut a panel of dark green card, placed it into my Gina K Wreath Builder, and stamped with embossing ink before adding white embossing powder and heating. I then realised it looked somewhat reminiscent of a snowflake, so I decided I would continue building it up with that in mind.

I created to more wreaths, each smaller than the previous one, using the smaller trees and heat embossing in white. For the smallest one I was impatient and just hand stamped it rather than using the wreath builder which of course ended up with it being wonky! Thankfully my sentiment covers the worst of it.

Once I had all three layers heat embossed I carefully fussy cut them out and adhered them on top of each other using tacky glue. I then set them aside whilst I worked on my card base.

I decided to use a brown card base and add some interest to it with stencilling. I took my Hard Textures stencil from The Crafter’s Workshop and positioned it over the card base. It’s not large enough to cover the whole card base so I did my inking in three sections. I used Simon Says Stamp Barely Beige ink for a tone-on-tone look.

I then took another piece of the same brown card I’d used for my card base, and heat embossed a sentiment from Lawn Fawn’s Merry Messages using some Love From Lizi gold embossing powder. I trimmed the panel down, then ran around the edges of it with the Barely Beige ink.

I adhered my tree snowflake to my card base with the same liquid glue I’d used for adhering the layers together. I then used foam tape behind my sentiment panel and added that over the top, using my t-square ruler to ensure that it was completely straight.

I am happy with how both of these cards turned out, but the Christmas one is definitely my favourite! I love how the wood effect turned out, and the tree wreath/snowflake is so fun. It’s a very different Christmas card, and I think perfect for a man. Especially one who loves the outdoors!

Love,

Lady Joyful

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Challenges included:

CAS Colours and Sketches – Sketch (edit – where it was a weekly winner!)

HLS Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas

Lawn Fawnatics – Cards for Guys

Twofer Card Challenge – Trees