Wednesday 9 September 2015

Evergreen


The tree is not only the centre piece of many living rooms in the UK at Christmas time but it is also a favourite motif of crafters everywhere. It's another one of those wonderfully versatile shapes to which you can apply countless techniques and create from a range of materials.

As we count down to Christmas I will be making a number of  creations using this fabulous new die from Tim Holtz, namely Bigz Evergreen.

This project is perfect if like me you have scraps of paper left from those beloved paper packs which you can't find anywhere for love nor money, but want to hang on to the bits that you have left even though they are taking up space in your craft stash.

I am using a lovely 6.5 x 6,5 pad from Kaisercraft called Yuletide. Let's begin..... 

I am going to create a collage on a 10 x 13 cm rectangle of mount board using strips from the aforementioned paper pad before cutting a few thin strips of text pattern paper. I have used a couple of Distress Ink pads (Old Paper and Vintage Photo) to deepen the colour around the edges of all the strips.



 Once the strips were attached I used some postmark stamps to add further detail. Once satisfied with the effect I placed the collaged mount board face down onto the Bigz die and cut my shape.


 After inking around the outside of the tree it's time to put the card together. I wound a length of twine into different sized loops before securing with a small staple which will be covered later. I then sprayed the string with adhesive before sprinkling with Distress Glitter, I know that it hasn't picked up in the picture but the effect is wicked. Next, I used a large ornate stamp together with the Old Paper ink pad to add detail to the front of a white A6 base card.

 I cut a 7 x 11 cm rectangle of paper covered in a very subtle vintage pattern which is perfect for the background, any more detail and it would start to clash with the tree. I inked around the edges before strategically scrunching the paper.


Here is the finished card. I attached the distressed paper using double sided tape before mounting the tree using adhesive foam pads. the string and the diamanté gem were  both mounted using a hot glue gun. The gem by the way, was liberated from a piece of old costume jewellery.

More of these on the way between now and Christmas.... Bye for now!


5 comments:

  1. I never would have thought of using the strips of paper and then die cutting. I guess this is why you are a designer :-)) Very neat effect!

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  2. Thanks Marci, It's an old favourite technique from the early days when we would gather together lots of scraps of different materials and cut them all together to demonstrate Bigz dies before the word up-cycling was invented!

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  3. Pete, I love this! Always love your take on Tim's dies...you get it! I am going to try the string/distress glitter trick!

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  4. Thanks Paula, I really appreciate your comment, it's a great collection from Tim (as always!) so there's plenty more on the way.

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  5. Fabulous idea, love everything about this card!

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