Friday, October 19, 2012

Christmas without Squares

Yesterday, I tried to make something for Heather's OLW challenge and failed. I'll try again later today, but in the meantime, let's take a look at a Christmas card.

Lovely as a Tree by StampinUp (no egregious exclamation point because only I am allowed to use those) is one of the greatest classic stamp sets of all time. It's one of the first sets I bought from SU, and it'll be mine forever because it simply has to be in the Great Craftroom in the Sky.



Ordinarily, I use design elements in threes, but today, we're focusing on three sets of two: two trees, two rhinestones, and two lines of text. The layout is very asymmetrical, but the sentiment panel is actually centered horizontally on the card on purpose because it lends a bit of stability to the design. It and the inner tree both lay on the imaginary Lines of Thirds, an arrangement that also stabilizes or anchors the design in the lower left sweet spot.

This is my last unposted card, so I need to get busy making stuff. Hopefully, my muse will come back to me today. Alas, she appears to have gone on vacation!

Have a lovely weekend.

Supplies
stamps: SU Lovely as a Tree, Hero Arts sentiment (retired)
ink: Memento
accessories: rhinestones, dimensionals
paper: PTI white

10 comments:

  1. Lovely! It is just perfect--the kind of card I would love to see in my mailbox! : )
    Bev

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  2. I totally agree on this stamp set. Any serious stamper has it. And nobody ever sells it. This is a lovely use of that tree, in a classy Christmas card. I enjoyed reading all the reasons it was "right," and can see each of them. It's a pretty, pretty card. Hope you're feeling well, and that you get your mojo back!

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  3. You've just made my Christmas card making a lot easier. This is my all-time favorite stamp set. It was one of my first-ever stamp set purchases, too. You'd have to pry it out of my hands as I lay dying in order for me to give it up. It has had great staying power, which is a great barometer for stamps and books.

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  4. Your card makes me wish for that stamp set :)

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  5. Beautiful, Susan - love the theme of "two" (and your very entertaining posts) Thank you.

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  6. Would you believe I was stamping for about 4 years before I broke down and bought Lovely as a Tree? I was trying not to buy too much stuff.... But now I have it, I agree with you that it is indispensable - great for Christmas and winter cards, and perfect for masculine cards. I love what you did with the single tree stamp - I'll be CASEing it for sure.

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  7. So beautiful! Thanks for the reminder that simple card can be extremely beautiful!

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  8. I had to laugh at your comment about the lack of exclamation point following "Stampin' Up". For some reason I find myself using exclamation points often when I'm communicating online whether it's a comment on a blog or just an e-mail to a friend. I'm not exactly sure why I have come to use so many exclamation points online when I never did it back in the days of writing letters. But, anyway, it gave me laugh because as many exclamation points as I use these days, I can't ever bring myself to put one after the words Stampin' Up. I'm even a hobby demo and correspond with another demo fairly often. Most, if not all the demos whose blogs I read always seem to use the exclamation point so I guess I'm just being rebellious. As much as I like many of the SU products, I guess I'm just not excited enough about the company to add the exclamation point. LOL!

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  9. Very nice card! I have this SU set, however, since I have so many other wonderful tree stamps, I have never used it. This will be the year. :)

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  10. As usual, a very nice card! And if you let your muse take a well-earned holiday, she will be back, relaxed and full of energy to accompany you again as faithful as ever (the two of you do an excellent job together).
    Taking a break eveery now and then can be helpful - not only for personal creativity-muses :O)

    Greetings, Christine

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!