Wednesday, December 7, 2016

trees, trees and also trees (some of them plaid)

i'm not sure how it happened, but i wound up with fewer holiday cards than i actually need this year, so i'll be making and posting a couple more over the next week or so, as i finish up. one of the things i do in this sort of situation is look through my stash and choose a card or two i especially enjoyed making, and sort of, well... CASE myself, lol. this time i saw these fun colorburst trees from january, and thought, "yep! that'll work!" so i made a few more in a similar vein:


one of the reasons i chose this design is that i knew i had a bunch of the same "ingredients" left. by which i mean panels of watercolor paper on which i'd either used up some pre-mixed colorburst, or tried experiments in tinted modeling paste, or blended colors that didn't quite work or... well, something. one way and another, i often end up with panels like these; ones which, for whatever reason, were not quiiiiiiiiiiite right at the time i made them, but were too pretty to toss away. i never worry about that, though, because i know that they'll be perfect for *SOMETHING*, sometime.  For example, the blue ones make really good sky... add a torn strip of white glitter paper and you have the background of a faux polaroid landscape, such as the one all three of these cards make use of! Diecut some tiny trees from the green panels et voila! it's a winter wonderland! :)


this card might be my favorite of the group, because it uses two of my "glorious experiment" panels, a bit of leftover plaid from the "warm and cozy" mittens card a few weeks ago, and a cyanotype landscape from an old christmas ideals magazine that matched perfectly!


this one's got more little trees, a snowflakey ideals page, the last few snowflake rub-ons in an ancient packet, and a very dark and stormy emboss-resist colorburst panel that really was resist-able... till now!


and finally, i got to use up one of my other hand-painted plaid panels, a few more trees, a scrap of peacock blue cardstock, and a very blendy, aurora borealis sky that was a much-too-wet attempt at a watercolor globe this summer! it just goes to show that there are no BAD colorburst paintings, just ones we haven't found the right use for yet!!! :)


the current mojo monday sketch (#477) is rather fab, so i used it without much variation on all three cards:


and the theme for just us girls week #372 is "christmas tree" so i'm definitely on point for that one:



i hope you'll be inspired to look at some of your crafty "mistakes" with new eyes, and find a way to give them new life! ♥♥♥

7 comments:

  1. Awesome backgrounds - fabulous cards thanks for joining in at JUGS

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  2. These are all truly fabulous! Love the different tones of trees and the wonderful backgrounds you have created! It was a pleasure reading and seeing your work Lauren! Thanks for playing along at Just Us Girls!

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  3. I love your upcycled cards, Lauren. I know what you mean by 'too pretty to throw away but not what I'm looking for.' What you've done with all the bits and pieces of previous cards is very creative. I'm so glad you shared these with us at Just Us Girls.

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  4. love those plaid trees so much, wonderful array of cards lauren

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  5. Oh, these are all just fabulous! Love those backgrounds. Thanks for joining us for Mojo Monday!

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