Pine Forest Bauble 🌲

Hi everyone, yesterday afternoon I managed to my first crafting session in three weeks, as I have been completely preoccupied with booking, taking, and sorting myself out after, a last minute holiday. Having never even heard of it until a few weeks ago, we booked a getaway in Pula in Croatia after seeing it feature in a programme on TV. I’ll include a few holiday pics at the end of this post , but first … a card!

Today’s card is closely based on a YouTube tutorial by Heidi the Yorkshire Crafter, but as usual with a few adjustments and twists of my own. The basic premise was an ink blended night sky and tree scene in a bauble using Tracy Evans stamps and stencils. I used an elliptical rather than round bauble stencil (as that’s all I’ve got!) so I changed the card shape from rectangular to square, and as I didn’t have the exact tree by Tracy I substituted with several pine trees by Card-io. My ink colours were similar but not quite the same, and I added a little background stamping around the bauble, primarily to cover a faint smudge on the white card! 🤣

I cut a stitched square of white stamping card from a mid sized snippet, and taped down my bauble stencil and a hill mask. I then blended various shades of blue Distress Oxide to form the sky working outwards from light to dark, and lightly inked in the snowdrift. I then added some blended Twilight VFC at the edges of the sky to make it pop, and lightly blended my palest shade around the bottom edge of the bauble to define it. With the hill mask in place I stamped a few small background trees in 1st and 2nd generation VFC, then added a foreground tree using Twilight. I stamped the teeny mouse from Tracy Evans set TE?? in Nocturne, then grounded the mouse and tree and added a couple more snowdrifts using torn paper and blended Twilight VFC. I added a shadow effect around the bauble by placing the stencil inner on top of the bauble and lightly blending Black Soot DOX around it. 

In her tutorial Heidi created a silver glitter card bauble top by drawing round the stencil and cutting out - but me and craft knives don’t really mix, so I coloured the bauble top with silver Posca pen and blue fine liners, and drew a bauble string. I added some Posca snow to the trees and spatter to the scene, then when dry I stamped the sentiment and a couple of Christmas numbers  in 2nd generation, which I also decorated with Posca snow. I matted the finished piece onto a border of charcoal glitter card (my last large snippet!) and onto a 6” square card blank. 

Stamps: Card-io Pine Forest; Tracy Evans Boutique Designs TE22 Christmas Wishes, TE32 Alpha Florals;

Media: Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks (Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Blueprint Sketch, Chipped Sapphire, Black Soot); Versafine Clair (Nocturne, Twilight, Morning Mist); Posca pen (white);

Tools: Hunkydory Moonstone Duo-Stitched square die; Tracy Evans Snippet Stencil SS006 Bauble.

Challenges I would like to enter:

12 Months of Christmas #126 - Anything Christmas Goes

ABC Christmas - T is for Trees

Addicted to Stamps & More #502 - Christmas

Crazy Is Our Fame, Stencils Are Our Game (September) - Use a Stencil (2nd entry)

Creative Moments #274 - Trees

The Holly and Ivy #192 - Anything Christmas Goes

Merry Little Christmas #64 - Anything Christmas Goes

Peace On Earth #96 - Anything Christmas Goes

Rudolph Days (September) - Anything Christmas Goes

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Anything Goes

Snippets Playground #515 - Use Snippets

As mentioned above, we got back at the end of last week from a last minute holiday to celebrate our wedding anniversary, so my previous couple of posts were scheduled while we were away. We had 10 days in Croatia, staying in Pula which is primarily noted for its Roman ruins including an amphitheatre which is fundamentally a smaller version of the Colosseum, and a 2000 year old Roman temple. It was really interesting to see the monuments, and we also had a lovely day trip to the pretty coastal resort of Rovinj plus a visit to  Pula’s amazing Aquarium and turtle rescue centre. We were a bit concerned just before we went by the weather forecast which predicted 4 days of rain, but in the event it only rained for one afternoon and evening - phew!

Here are a few pics from our break.

View from hotel balcony

Pula amphitheatre

Roman arch

Temple of Augustus

Roman Temple and medieval Town Hall

Pula by night

Rovinj

Having had a few days of running around madly getting ready after our last minute booking, and a few days of the obligatory washing and ironing after our return, things are finally settling back down to normal so I guess it’s now time to really start gearing up with the Christmas makes - happy Rudolph Day!

Take care, and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,