Canopy Crafts: pretty pines

Showing posts with label pretty pines. Show all posts

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Pretty Pines in Plaid PP369

Hi friends and happy Sunday to you! There's no denying we're headed into the holiday season now that Halloween is past. With lovely LeAnne's theme challenge this week at The Paper Players, I couldn't resist the holiday card making any longer!

Pines and pine cones are among my favorite holiday decorations. Before the tree lots figured out that they could use the scraps for wreaths, I used to pick up the trimmed pieces for free! I used them everywhere possible in the house and it always smelled wonderful. This challenge kick started my holiday decorating with my favorite Pretty Pines thinlits and a little something different.....

I thought it would be fun to use the negative space of the pine dies and let the pretty plaid paper peek through. I won't lie...I went through two pieces of cardstock to get the "random" arrangement of pine boughs just right. "Random" and I don't get along well.... :-) Anyway....with three sizes of pine boughs in the die set, it didn't take as many passes through the big shot as you might imagine. Once I liked the arrangement, I popped it up with ALOT of dimensionals on top of a Old Olive base that was covered with this pretty plaid from the Merry Little Christmas DSP. What didn't photograph well, is the liberal brushing of Wink of Stella all over the white panel. It really makes the pine boughs sparkle!

The sun was really bright when I snapped these shots but I think you can see the sparkle from the black Glimmer paper I used to die cut the pine cone. I tried a few black glimmer pine boughs but in the end, simple silver thread bow was just enough.

I mimicked the pattern of the front on the inside of the card with some pine bough stamped in Old Olive from the Christmas Pines set. The lovely pine cone and sentiment are from the same set and stamped in black Memento ink.

Thanks for stopping by today, friends! Be sure to check out the rest of the awesome holiday pine creations my teammates created over at The Paper Players. I hope you'll join us before our challenge closes on Friday November 10th at Noon (PST).

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

Nance Leedy

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Frosted Pines & Sugarplums PP323

I hope all my friends in the US enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday weekend. It was beautiful weather here in north FLA and we spent a fun-filled day with family. Today, at The Paper Players, our sensational Sandy has a sketch challenge for us--my favorite--and it's a good one!

I have a confession to make.....I am not fond of red and green together--gasp! I know, right?! How could this be? Well, I'm a frosty winter kind of girl--pastels, silver, white and grey. Those fantastic mercury glass ornaments in shades of pink, blue and green. All of them hanging on our vintage silver aluminum Christmas tree--really we have one! I might add, our tree trimming sessions are always accompanied by A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra. So, it was with dreams of frosty sugarplums dancing in my head that I made today's card...

Happy sigh....these colors are gorgeous together. Trust me, lay your ink pads next to each other and see how pretty they look. Sweet Sugarplum, Pool Party and Smoky Slate/Silver. Like a frosty winer wonderland!

The Pool Party base was stamped with snowflakes from the Christmas Pines set. Over the Sweet Sugarplum layer I added a slightly smaller piece of Vellum cardstock embossed with the Pine Bough embossing folder. Love how the vellum cracks and turns white when embossed. The Pretty Pines thinlits were cut from Dazzling Diamonds glimmer paper--love its icy iridescence.

I repeated the same colors on the inside using Smoky Slate for the snowflakes, Pool Party for the pine boughs and Sweet Sugarplum for the sentiment. Did I mention that I love these colors together?! :-)

I hope you've enjoyed today's card as much as I enjoyed making it. Be sure to check out the rest of The Paper Players design team for even more fabulous inspiration! Come along and play with us before our challenge ends on Friday, December 2nd at Noon (PST).

The Paper Players Design Team

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Pretty Pines of Festive Color PP321

Happy Sunday, friends! I hope you're having a great weekend. This week at The Paper Players our sweet and talented friend Joanne is hosting a color challenge for us:

These colors are so festive together! Emerald Envy and Mint Macaron complement each other nicely. I had an idea in my head for these colors but I just couldn't translate it to paper. Sometimes that happens, right?! Anyway, here's what I came up with:

I just love the Christmas Pines stamp set and coordinating Pretty Pines Thinlits. I also used the Pine Bough Textured embossing folder but in a slightly different way. I wanted the embossed pine boughs to radiate out from the center sentiment but the way the folder is made the pine bough comes down from the upper left corner. I cut my card front in half and embossed each half. Then, I flipped one of the pieces so the pine bough went in the opposite direction. I adhered both of them to a Real Red card base and covered the seam with a piece of [retired] Real Red satin ribbon. That gave me just the look I wanted with the pine boughs!

I used several dies from the Pretty Pines Thinlits to embellish the sentiment panel. Even tucked in some Metallic Real Red Thread behind as well. And speaking of the senitment, did you notice those fabulous Stitched Shapes Framelits? Newly released by Stampin' Up, I was so excited to receive them this week that I coulnd't wait to use them. I love the extra detail the stitched edge adds without any extra bulk.

Before I let you go, I want to share a picture of a special visitor we had to our pond Saturday morning. I apologize for the poor quality photo--my phone was all that was handy and he was far away--but I think you will recognize his shape:

A Blue Heron paid us a visit and waded around in the pond on our property. So cool to see him swoop down into the water and then wade around ever so gingerly. I know you can't see his detail--and I couldn't either--but I could see that he was a beautiful gray-blue color. I don't know that we have any fish in that pond but there certainly are tons of frogs to keep him fed!

That's it for me today...please go check out the lovely inspiration from the rest of our design team over at The Paper Players. I hope you will join us before our challenge closes on Friday, November 18th at Noon (PST).

The Paper Players Design Team

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Pretty Pines for Tic-Tac-Toe PP319

Hi friends and happy Sunday. Welcome to another week with The Paper Players where the lovely LeAnne is hosting a bonus Tic-Tac-Toe challenge:

Tic-Tac-Toe challenges are great fun because you get to pick which three elements to include in the design. I chose the bottom row: diecut, pine and ribbon with an added bonus of washi tape, red, glitter and patterned paper! I almost got them all!

I used the awesome sketch at Fab Friday for my inspiration just turning it to the vertical, rather than horizontal, orientation. The music sheet paper is from This Christmas Specialty designer paper--it has a lovely thin texture that is great for layering without bulk. The Very Vanilla panel is embossed with the Softly Falling embossing folder (swoon!) and layered with a strip of [retired] gold glitter washi tape.

The real star of the show is these gorgeous diecuts from the Pretty Pines thinlits. They were the first thing in my shopping cart from the Holiday catalog! Here I used Garden Green and Wild Wasabi to cut several layers of pine boughs. There are some berry sprigs in this set as well and here they are cut from Cherry Cobbler cardstock. The pine cones are backed with a sold shape in Basic Black and the outer layer of the pine cone is cut from Gold Foil paper.

I used stamps from the coordinating stamp set, Christmas Pines to decorate the inside and added a little snip of the matching dsp from the front. Lastly, here's the Fab Friday sketch that inspired my design:

My friends on the Paper Players design team have some gorgeous eye candy to inspire you to play along this week. Check them out before our challenge closes on Friday, November 4th at Noon (PST). Thanks for stopping by, friends!

The Paper Players Design Team