Trees a Crowd – Caardvarks Challenge Handmade Card
The latest Caardvarks challenge is around the theme of trees! Perfect idea since it’s April and with Earth Day as well, folks have been concentrating a lot on nature and eco-chic topics. I decided to experiment a bit with the creation of my card after reading so much about various techniques on craft blogs this past week.
Recently I came across some designer websites and there was the mention of digital stamping. I was wondering what the heck that was, until I realized that it’s just printing out designs instead of actually stamping with a physical item. It was a great idea and I don’t know why I never thought to do it before. Here in Italy we don’t have the luxury of giant craft stores, not to mention it costs a lot when you do find a places that sell craft materials. Maybe that is the case everywhere! I created my own decorated paper instead by printing the love poem, How do I love thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, repeated many times in a nice handwriting font.
I happen to have rolls and rolls of brown packing paper and used that for the inner rectangle. I was trying a semi-distressed look by stamping various gold and bronze colors on the brown paper and accented the edge with a greenish ink pad.
The tree is actually created from a decorated paper by Stamperia where the backside I used for the trunk and the front side I cut out into tiny leave shapes. To finish it up I stamped the gold and bronze metallic color lightly on top and added the left-hand side tulle cloth and fasteners to embellish. I realized my X-acto knife needs a new blade (I’ve always had issues cutting straight and mounting!) and stronger cardstock would have made it sturdier, but otherwise it turned out quite nice. I was running around trying to find the proper light to take a photo, here’s the final finished card:
Posted on April 23, 2009 at 7:11 pm | Showcase
What a cool earth day design … love your tree.
Beautiful card! I love all of your hand made elements!
oh WOW! i love this both to look at AND by virtue of your creativity in choosing items with which to craft! you are just SO CLEVER and i reallllllly love your beautiful tree! ?
Love the hand-made element….you have a great feel of the paper materials. What a gift you have!!
LOVE that handmade tree…and the background paper you made