This card was made for Retro Rubber Blog Challenge #170 whose theme was "fall". The challenge also required the use of a stamp that was older than a year. I used the tree trunk stamp from Stampin' Up! (SU) 2016 "Thoughtful Branches" (5 years old), and SU 2014 Hostess set called "Good Greetings" for the sentiment).
I had in my head that I wanted to create a 3D tree canopy. So I started by using the "Beautiful Branches" canopy die to cut out the tree from an interesting multicolor rectangles piece of autumn paper from the long-g-g-g retired SU "Color Me Autumn" designer series paper (DSP). It's background was white, so I used a blending brush to randomly cover it lightly with orange and cinnamon ink. This hid the fact that the fall colors on the paper were irregular little rectangles (sort of shaped like ears of corn).
I cut a second canopy from thin orange fun foam and glued the paper canopy on top of it. I next used paper snips to cut out two parts of the foam-mounted canopy near the center of the tree. I cut a second canopy from yellow fun foam and trimmed the foam to fit the two mounted sections I had cut out of the main mounted canopy. This allowed me to glue the two "taller" pieces of canopy back into their original spots, but now they stuck up for a 3D look.
The main front panel is SU Kraft cardstock that I embossed using the SU "Painted Texture" 3D embossing folder. I glued this to the SU Chocolate Chip A2 card base.
Using a orangish leafy pattern paper from the "Color Me Autumn" pack, I cut a strip 1-3/4"x 4" and glued over the embossed card front. I then glued the tree canopy on the card. The tree trunk was stamped using the SU "Thoughtful Branches" set with SU Soft Suede onto Kraft cardstock. I used a craft sponge to sponge all the edges of the trunk to make it stand out more against the embossed background.
The sentiment from the SU "Good Greetings" set was stamped on a 3/4" wide vanilla cardstock strip using Soft Suede ink, then punched with a banner punch. I did paper tearing on the left side of the banner.
The banner was mounted with foam tape. I also added a little pumpkin I snipped out of one of the pattern papers, and used a blending brush with orange ink to tone down the white "creases" in the pumpkin before gluing it down.
I am rating the difficulty of this card as a "2" out of a possible "5" if you are an experienced stamper. The hardest part was getting the fun foam canopy parts snipped out and glued to the back of the mounted canopy.
Date: Thursday, October 28, 2021 GMT Views: 436
Favorited:3
Paper: SU Color Me Autumn, Very Vanilla, Kraft, Chocolate Chip
Paper Size: A2
Ink: SU Soft Suede, Calypso Coral, Cinnamon Cider
Accessories: SU Beautiful Branches Dies, SU Painted Texture Embossing Folder, Yellow & Orange Fun Foam, Paper Snips, SU Banners Pick-a-Punch, Tombow Multi Liquid Glue
Techniques: Die Cutting, Layering, Punching, Embossing, Sponging