I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear a nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain; who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.
~Joyce Kilmer, "Trees," 1914
Its another 4th Friday (where did August go?!) and time for another fun challenge from Paper Garden Projects. This month we want to see your Fall and Back-to-School projects. Cathy is offering a super cute Penny Black Hedgehog Birthday cling stamp to be drawn randomly from those of you who link up your projects at Cathy's place by Saturday, September 4th. You can see all the rules and that adorable stamp set here, at the Paper Garden Projects blog.
As I made it this Joyce Kilmer's poem kept popping through my head. One of my most fondest memories is of riding my bicycle down a lovely long hill (yes, I prefer riding down hills rather than up) in the peak of a beautiful Southern Indiana Fall. I was on one of those roads where the big hard wood trees grew over the top of the road creating a tree tunnel – and gorgeous Fall leaves were raining down. I wanted my card to capture how magical that moment was so my Fall tree has blue leaves and crystal sparkles – magical!
I went a little outside the box with my embellishment. It's the bloom off of a bouquet of artificial flowers. I just removed the plastic stem from the flower and knotted my ribbon up into the hole that remained.
The template for my card came from this week's sketch at The Pink Elephant Challenge (TPE81). The trunk of my card – oh my – this is why my card is a day late and I'm posting this on the fourth Saturday instead of the fourth Friday. I cut the trunk out of a wood sheet – not an easy task given all the twists and turns. But, oh, I like the way it turned out. Then, of course, I attached all those crystal stickers, and for just a little more pop, colored over the blue leaves again with the clear Spica pen. Oh, it's sparkly and luscious in real life.
Here are the Copic markers I used and the rest of the recipe.
- Fibers: grosgrain ribbon, linen thread
- Ink – Memento Rich Cocoa, Staz-On Timber Brown (on the wood sheet), and Copic markers (see below), Clear Spica Pen (yummy)
- Paper – Neenah Card Stock, Kraft, Kaiser Kraft Peachy Keen 6×6 paper pad. This paper pad includes 4 sheets of coordinating die cut tags, labels and borders, so, yep, my little tag is from the same paper pad.
- Stamp: Impression Obsession Elegant Tree Cling Stamp (G2162)
- Misc.: Artificial flower bouquet, Crystal stickers. Wish I had some of Paper Garden Projects gemstones. It would have been stunning to use coordinating colors instead of clear cyrstals.
I hope you'll add your projects to our Fall frolic – I'll be watching.
