Tag Archives: Sheltering Tree

Thinking of Wetlands

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The Paper Players have a challenge this week to have a bird on your CAS (clean and simple) card. Okay, I can do that. I have a few stamps with birds on them; I decided to use the oyster catchers / avocets from the Stampin’ Up! Wetlands set. Actually this is the second card that I made, the first wasn’t as clean and simple. I’ll post it in a day or two.

Stampin' Up! Wetlands and Sheltering Tree

Here’s the banner:

I used the perpetual birthday calendar set and the April image and stamped it in crumb cake on very vanilla card stock. Then I put the birds from the Wetlands set on top in early espresso. I should mention that the first time I stamped them, I was so intent on figuring out where they should go, that I got too close to the card stock and smudged everything. That’s why there are two sides to the paper, right? The sentiment is from one of the new stamp sets from the Occasions 2015 catalog, Sheltering Tree and is also stamped in early espresso. It’s a great set.

I’ve matted the very vanilla in early espresso which is just 1/8 inch bigger than the very vanilla. I really like how the very skinny mat works. The base is crumb cake. This means that I can have a matching envelope – I’ve lined it using the envelope liners framelits to cut out the liner in the backgrounds DSP from the subtle family in crumb cake.

A cold and snowy sheltering tree

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Inspired by yesterday’s eight inches or so of snow, I pulled out the Stampin’ Up! Sheltering Tree set and proceeded to do a wintery scene. Although a white background would have given the impression of lots of snow and cold, I wanted to have white snowflakes and a white snowbank so that wasn’t going to work. Hence I have used soft sky. I think it looks chilly enough with all the white and the stark tree which is stamped in early espresso.

Stampin' Up! Sheltering Tree

Once I’d stamped the tree, and after re-inking my versamark inkpad, I stamped the bank from the set a few times and sprinkled on the white embossing powder. I then carefully stamped the little snowflake images in versamark as well before using more of the white embossing powder. As I was heating the powder, I realised that due to re-inking my inkpad, I’d got out of the heat embossing routine and forgotten to use the embossing buddy. Normally if such a thing happened, I’d redo the card but since I’m stamping snow, I decided that little spots of extra white made sense. Next time I’ll re-ink the inkpad after doing my heat embossing rather than before.

The sentiment – also stamped in early espresso – comes from the same set and then I mounted the soft sky on a base of more early espresso.

Sheltering Tree

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Rebecca is the fourth member of our walk club to achieve the challenge of increasing her step average over the previous year. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I decided to send cards to the four members who achieved this. Karen’s, Gary’s and Gail’s cards can be seen using these links.

Stampin' Up! Sheltering Tree

I am especially proud of Rebecca for meeting this challenge because she had some very painful issues with her back to overcome so she gathered her steps a few at a time. Constantly. And focused on the goal every single day. Such determination is to be applauded.

Rebecca is a member of my Critique Board as I call it. I often email them with photos of cards completed or sometimes in progress. So Rebecca saw Karen’s card before it was published (or even sent) and she commented that she loves square cards. So this is a 4 inch square card in old olive (she loves green too). I was planning to use the tree from the Stampin’ Up! Sheltering Tree set but it didn’t really fit so I just used the grassy bank and the flower stalks both in old olive and the flowers in real red on a layer of very vanilla.

Then I cut out the you using the Hello You thinlits in both real red and old olive so that I could decide on colour. As you can see, old olive won. I’m amassing a nice stash of words from this thinlit set as I usually cut them in a couple of colours and only then decide which to use. The “so proud of” comes from the Crazy About You stamp set and it’s stamped in real red.

Stampin' Up! Sheltering Tree envelope

I then used the envelope punch board and a square of very vanilla to create an envelope for this card. Instead of lining it, I stamped the images from the card (the stamps were already covered in ink!) onto the front as you see. I’m really pleased with how this came out.