A close-up of the center of the tree–marvelous branches

Today I finally started working with a Northwoods stamp I got last holiday season but never got a chance to use. It is a beautiful, majestic tree–I love trees, especially ones with just branches and no leaves.

I think if I were rich and felt free to be as eccentric as I am in my secret heart, I would commission an artist to paint an enormous tree on the biggest wall inside my house, with branches trailing down adjacent hallways and up onto the ceiling. It would be magnificent. But that, however, is getting off the point.

I used hematite embossing powder (Stampendous) over black pigment ink (Colorbox).

I cut up a bunch of panels, some a neutral ivory color and some a deep brown, so that I could experiment with the effects of various combinations of inks and embossing powders against the different backgrounds. On one of the ivory panels I stamped the tree with black pigment ink and then used hematite embossing powder.

Thinking it needed some shimmer to it, I went outside and sprayed Perfect Pearls Heirloom Gold and a silver spray over the panel, then I brought it inside and dried it with a heat gun. It was okay but the gold was too much in a couple of spots, so I tried to dab a bit off in the upper left corner . . . and it all went downhill from there.

First it turned out the heirloom gold, while dried by the heat gun, was still reactive with water, so I had rubbed off that as well as caused the card stock to pill up. Reapplying the gold spray did not disguise what I had done. Tried rubbing off the gold spray all around the tree in a vain attempt to make it look like I had done it intentionally, and that just looked like crap.

Branches of the finished tree with glittery snow on them

But I liked the hematite tree! I didn’t want to have to toss it. So I decided if it was distressed in one corner, then clearly the only thing to do was to embrace the distressed effect and go all the way with it. I rubbed all around the edges of the panel with a wipe, then I inked it up first with Old Paper and then with Tea Dye. I cut and scored a piece of dark blue (thinking of a twilight sky) kraft core card stock for a card and sanded the edges away, then inked them with more Tea Dye ink.

Photo-corner style against dark blue kraft-core card stock

I mounted the panel onto the card and then went to town with my Stickles. To add petite snowflakes in the tree, I used Frosted Lace, Icicle, Crystal, Diamond, and Star Dust, and I love the effect of the different colors in the glitter against the distressed edges. It is one of my favorite holiday cards I have ever made, and I had no idea I was going to make it! I am very glad to have saved my hematite tree panel from the bin.

Completed card, saved from the rubbish!