Build a Tree

When I saw the current color palette at the Color Room, I thought it would work perfectly with the Gertie papers from My Mind's Eye's "Stella and Rose" collection.  My stash of Gertie papers has been well loved, and I only have scraps left.  But, since I'm into using up scraps, I decided to try to make a card anyway.  Since there is a card challenge up at the My Mind's Eye blog, I decided to combine it with the Color Room challenge.

The My Mind's Eye challenge is to create a card with a tall, vertical element in the center.  This is to be surrounded with three round elements.  (See the sketch here.)  For my interpretation of this card (see photo above), I decided to create a colorful, pieced Christmas tree, accented by three funky snowflakes.  Let me show you how I did it.

1.  First I gathered scraps from my pad of Gertie mini papers (6x6") that would work with the Color Room palette.  I ended up with eight different patterns.  I also chose a large chocolate-brown scrap (seen at the bottom of this pile) for a neutral background for my card.

2.  I trimmed my chocolate-brown paper to size, rounded its corners, then set it aside.

3.  I chose a piece of paper that did NOT coordinate with the palette, folded it in half, and cut out a triangle to use as the base for my Christmas tree.

4.  I punched strips of paper from my eight chosen patterns.  I used a border punch from EK Success (seen above) that I thought created the look of fluffy evergreen boughs.  It also created a lot of confetti!

5.  I decided on an order for my different colored strips, then began gluing them to my triangular base.  I started at the bottom of the triangle and worked my way up.  I made sure to only use a thin line of glue along the top (non-punched) of each strip.  The two photos below show this step of creating the tree.

*the first few strips are adhered at the bottom of the triangle*

*now the triangle is all covered with strips*

6.  After my triangle was completely covered with punched strips, I flipped it over to the other side (photo below)

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7.  Then I used scissors to trim the excess paper (see photo above), leaving behind just the triangular tree.

8.  I fussy-cut three round snowflake shapes from the remaining scraps of one of my patterned papers.  I glued a my tree to the chocolate-brown base, added a strip of green paper for a tree trunk, and then glued the snowflakes in place.  The photo below shows one of these snowflakes.

9.  I accented each snowflake with gold gel pen doodles and a Petaloo rhinestone.  I also used the gold gel pen to add my quote and whimsical doodling to the chocolate-brown background.

10.  I fluffed up the layers of the Christmas tree (see photo above), using the eye of a blunt embroidery needle to gently curl the punched points outward.

11.  I adhered the chocolate brown panel to a pre-made card base, and my card was finished.  There it is again, in the photo below.  Hope you like it!