Aspen Trees Birthday Card

 Hello, hello!  Hope you're having some decent weather.  We've got rain again and these gray days are really getting to me.  It's supposed to stop and get below freezing soon.  Will that be better?  Oh my goodness, I might even admit to missing snow!  Oh heavens!!  But at least with a snowfall, you've got at least one day where it's sparkling white, pristine, and so beautiful.  I've got to start working harder to be appreciative of all this rain.  What are some things about the rain that I can be thankful for?  Come on guys, help me out here!  While you're thinking of some good reasons, let me share a card with you.  It was necessary to make a few masculine birthday cards again.  This is one of them...

Here I go with the Aspen Trees Die set again.  LOVE this set!  This is one of the carry-over items from the winter Mini Catalog for which I am very grateful!  At Christmas I had made some nighttime cards, but this one is a daytime, spring or summer looking card.  I really enjoy using my Blending Brushes to get a softly blended background.  You can make it as soft and pale or as bold and bright as you like.  Just my kind of card.

I started by cutting a Basic White piece of cardstock to measure 5 1/4" x 4".  Then I die-cut the Aspen Trees in the center of this and set aside.  I thought I might add a smudge of color at all the "cuts" in the sides of the trees but decided against doing that.  For some reason, I just like the clean white look of the trees as is.  

Next, a piece of Basic White cardstock that measures 3 7/8" x 5 1/8" is cut.  On this piece, I used a Blending Brush and Balmy Blue ink to blend in a sky from the top to about 2/3 of the way down fading out at the end.  Using another Blending Brush, I blended Old Olive ink up from the bottom.  This was faded into the Balmy Blue area.  Afterwards, I lightly blended in some Garden Green ink to brighten the grassy area.  When I was happy with the colors, this was layered under the aspen trees using Multi Purpose Liquid Glue around the edges and touches of the glue on some of the tree trunks.  Make sure your background piece doesn't show around the edges!  If it's a little too big, trim it before putting the glue on it. This was all added to an 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" folded Garden Green card base using Dimensionals to make it stand out.

The leafy pieces were cut from a retired piece of DSP that had multiple green tones.  Four of these leafy pieces were cut then positioned on the card front.  After the positions were decided, each piece had dots of Multi Purpose Liquid Glue on the back to hold them in place in the centers.  The edges of the leafy pieces are very loosely attached so they look more dimensional.

The sentiment is from the Peaceful Moments set.  It's stamped on a Basic White piece using Old Olive ink.  It's then punched out with the Label Me Fancy punch found on page 153 of the Annual Catalog.  Before attaching to the card front, the top half was blended with Balmy Blue and the bottom half has Old Olive ink softly added.  Then it's attached to the card front using Dimensionals.

Since this was to be a masculine birthday card, I didn't want to add any glitz and glitter.  Not too many guys really care for that.  But I did add a double bow of Linen Thread to the left side of the label.  A rolled Mini Glue Dot holds it in place.

I hope you like this card with the blended background.  I find I love adding the blended ink behind the focal point of the card.  For some reason, I find the process of blending ink onto a background to be very calming.  This I could do for a good long while without getting bored.  There's just something about getting the colors just the way I want them to be, adding a little more here or there.  Then being able to add another color over the base color to get a different blend altogether.  It makes me feel so creative!  Maybe it's time for you to get your Blending Brushes out and have some fun!  Did you notice that there are Small Blending Brushes now too?  And a Storage Unit for both sizes of brushes is found on page 67 of the January-April Mini Catalog.  Now there's an easy and handy way to store your brushes.  Woo Hoo!!

Thanks for coming by again.  I really appreciate you taking the time to see what's going on here.  Hope you enjoy my ideas.  Some are very simple and straightforward, but how many of us really have three hours to spend on each card we make?  I know there are times I spend that amount of time and more to make a special card for a very special occasion.  But most of the time our card creations have to be made a little quicker.  So I try to offer you a mix of both.  Hope that works for you.

Happy stamping and creating,

Sharon