Ode to Green!

Hi all you inky people,

It's the Blog Hogger again, coming to you from friendly card-making land! lol Now Kathy may think she's getting her blog back all to herself but I know her password so I'll keep on blogging . . . until she changes it! lol

Speaking of her password, every time I do a posting I have to enter a password that is a combination of 14 letters and numbers! What's up with that? Seriously, I can feel myself age each time I type it in! It's actually takes less time for me to type the posting!!! lol Anyway, if anyone needs some help learning how to choose passwords that are unpredictable . . . and long . . . thereby frustrating hackers, just contact Kathy! lol

There, now that I have my rant out of the way, my next card is called . . . you guessed it . . . Ode to Green! Recently we have been having cooler, rainier weather and I can feel our lovely summer slipping away. Sigh! Therefore, I just had to do a card that shows my appreciation to Mother Nature for the wonderful work she does. lol

It's simple, it's clean, it's green . . . and here it is:

And here's a picture from the top:

Here are the details:

• I cut Always Artichoke cardstock (cs) at 4 1/4" x 11", and scored it at 5 1/2".
• The Certainly Celery layer is 4" x 5 1/4".
• The Whisper White layer is 3 3/4" x 5".
• I used the Lovely as a Tree stamp set and stamped the row of trees in the middle of the Whisper White cs.
• Then I cleaned and dried the stamp really well (an important step so that the trees on either side of the middle tree don't leave a faint trace in the next step).
• I prepared a scrap piece of Whisper White cs by rubbing it lightly with my Embossing Buddy.
• Then I inked up the middle tree using my VersaMarker.
• I colored the image all over using a Certainly Celery marker. Then I used a Chocolate Chip marker to touch up some of the trunk and branches. I just lightly dabbed the marker onto the stamp.
• Then I used the Always Artichoke marker to randomly tap some more color onto various spots on the tree.
• After stamping my image, I covered it with Clear Emboss Powder and, using my Heat Tool, I embossed the image.

Here's a close up of the tree to give you a visual of what I did:

• I punched out the tree using the Extra-Large Oval punch.
• I ran a scrap piece of Always Artichoke cs through the Big Shot, using the oval shape from the Designer Frames Folders.
• I cut around the frame by hand, glued the tree to the center and popped up the image using Dimensionals.

I know it seems like a lot of steps, but it was actually a very quick card to make. M-u-c-h quicker than typing Kathy's password! (I wonder what kind of password she would have picked if she was protecting something of national security? lol)

Teasing hugs,
Colleen, aka the Blog Hogger