Art is the Tree of Life

I got some new stamps from Paper Makeup Stamps yesterday, and I had some time to pull another one together. This one used Taylor's Cupcake Sketch Challenge. The layout was perfect for this stamp.

I started with trying to find some paper that had a tree of some sort on it (because of the sentiment), but no such luck. So I went with the Basic Grey Ambrosia paper. This pack has to be my favorite of them all so far. I just love the colors in the papers. This butterfly one is especially pretty. I cut two strips of it and then one in the off-white that comes in the back of the pack. I stamped the branch (my "tree") from PTI's Out on a Limb in Adirondack Espresso right on this paper. To do the leaves, I first colored them with a More Mustard marker, then "thumped" Really Rust and Garden Green over it. Gina K just did a tutorial on this on her first Stamp TV segment, but I've done this a few times before. It gives a nice mottled look. The sentiment is stamped in Espresso on the same off-white paper as the branch. I cut and embossed it with an oval nestie and sponged Sahara Sand on it while it was still in the die. I wanted it to match the "dirtied up" look of the off-white paper. It was mounted on another piece from the pack, a sort of orangey-red, that was cut and embossed in a scalloped oval nestie. The ribbon is a jute ribbon I got at JoAnn's eons ago. Once it was done, I felt it needed something. So I cut out two butterflies from another piece of the dp and layered them on with dimensionals. I then put diamond stickles on them and the leaves to sparkle it up. I love sparkle! Here' a closeup of the card so you can see the dimension.

You can see the red one pretty clearly in the foreground, and there's a blue one on the other side near the sentiment. As I'm sitting here typing this, I'm looking at the card and wished I'd cut out another butterfly and added it onto the sentiment! Oh well, hindsight and all!

For the inside of this card, I cut and embossed another piece of the off-white paper and the orangey-red paper with the Labels Two die. The sentiment is also from PTI's Out on a Limb. I thought it went nicely with the outside sentiment. I punched a butterfly from the paper and layered in on. I also took the largest Labels Two die and embossed the inside of the card so that the sentiment could lay inside of it. That's it for this card. Simple card, long post, huh? Sorry about that and thanks for sticking with me! Stop by again soon!

Recipe

Stamps: Paper Makeup Stamps (outside sentiment); Out on a Limb (PTI)

Paper: Kraft, Ambrosia (Basic Grey)

Ink: Adirondack espresso, sahara sand; more mustard, really rust and garden green markers

Accessories: Nesties: Oval and scallop oval, labels two; jute ribbon, diamond stickles, dimensionals