Audrie took us to a fabulous Pinterest board for inspiration today! I loved all of the pins. Several inspired my card but for this card, it was mainly this snowy tree. The pictures on the board brought back a load of great memories, some old and some recent. When you grow up in northern IL, you embrace the snow because if you "fight" it, you will lose. Hee. Whether it falls one inch or four feet, you deal with it. No matter how many yrs you live with it, there is "something" magical about the first snowfall of every single yr. It overwhelms your heart with happiness and in my case, usually brings a tear to my eye. It's as though the beautiful, pure, white snowflakes bring me a sense of renewal, a unique joy that is all it's own. Realistically, you know the havoc it can create (terrible driving conditions, ice, accidents, power outages, etc) but you can't help loving it anyway. This winter we haven't had nearly as much as usual but today it's supposed to snow from about 2 to 9 p.m. and I say 'Bring on a fresh blanket!'
So ... my card started with pieces I salvaged from a card I made in 2012 that I didn't like. It was blah, plain and boring. The trees were stamped in one SU ink color so I salvaged that and the blue panel which became the start of today's card. The SU blue panel was stamped in distress ink with a LKR snowflake bkgrd stamp. My card was also inspired by this card made by our FS465, Kathy LeDonne, as well as, the FMS217 sketch that ended 1/4.
To begin, I over-stamped the original trees with a more detailed tree stamp* (both tree stamps I used are loose rubber with no markings so I can't tell you who made them) in four shades of Ranger distress green. The trees went from plain and boring to colorful and the second, more detailed stamp gave them more depth, too. I used a small PTI snow flurry/flake stamp with Versfine white ink to add snow but the image was faint, not defined and looked like white smears. I was going to use my Ranger white paint but then I decided to use my Marvy white Liquid Embroidery pen. I dabbed it on my trees which added white, sparkly, icy-looking texture and dimension to them. The picture doesn't do that justice! IRL they look very pretty! I inked the edges of the cream panel, the blue panel and the new kraft card base with several distress ink colors. I put the pieces on the card base, raising the blue panel with SU dimensionals. It's not "plain" anymore and I love the way it turned out.
I am adding my card to the following challenge galleries:
Registered: March 8, 2005 Location: Halfway between Dallas and Houston Posts: 23975
Sun, Jan 10, 2016 @ 9:59 PM
Although I don't live in the snow any more, I totally agree with you on your thoughts on snow! I love it and I actually miss not getting any. I do love the way your trees came out on this card. They have such depth and I car really see the white highlights on them! The snowflakes panel and the button are a great base for the marvelous trees!
------------------------------ Proud Fan Club Member
Dirty Dozen Alumni
"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."