Beauty of the Earth

Welcome back, my friends! I have been so productive this week. On a Zoom call last Wednesday, I realized how horrible the bookshelves behind the desk in my new “office” looked. Ok, it’s not really an office. Our basement has a large living area that has been turned into a gym. The other side is basically a narrow hallway to the laundry room. Mike added a counter top and file cabinets to create a desk, and lots of bookshelves. I took down all the books from one wall of shelves and dusted them and the shelves, then put them back in a much neater fashion. I have more to do on the other wall, but those can’t be seen, so I’ll work on them later.

Today, I made thank you cards for Mike to send to real estate and electrical clients. But first, I created this Thinking of You card using products from the Stampin’ Up!® Annual Catalog.

Isn’t this fun? I used the Beauty of the Earth Suite products – the Beauty of Friendship Bundle (Beauty of Friendship Stamp Set and Beautiful Trees Dies; bundling them saves 10%) and the Beauty of the Earth Designer Series Paper (DSP). The other product in the suite is the Bark 3D Embossing Folder. I didn’t use it here, but I did use it on the cards I made for Mike.

This card is so simple to create. First, Stamp the bare tree in Early Espresso Ink on a 3″ x 4-1/4″ piece of Very Vanilla. Next, stamp the splatters over and over in Pool Party, Old Olive, Merry Merlot, Cajun Craze, Pumpkin Pie, and Crushed Curry. These splatters are so versatile. They can be a background or they can be snow, rain, falling leaves or whatever else you can think of. When you have all the “leaves” you want, stamp the sentiment in Merry Merlot.

Adhere a 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Beauty of the Earth DSP to a Very Vanilla card base, then adhere the stamped layer using Stampin’ Dimensionals. (Tip: Use Stitched Rectangle Dies or your Paper Trimmer to cut a rectangle from the center of the DSP – smaller than the stamped layer. That way, you’ll have another piece to use as an accent later and it won’t be wasted behind the Very Vanilla layer.) You can add ribbon or twine and other embellishments, but I wanted to keep it simple. And, besides, I thought the DSP was busy enough without any embellishments.

As I look at the image on this card, I know that the wind is blowing those leaves right into my pool. Every year when I clean the pool for the last time before we close it for winter, we have a nice breeze that blows a ton of leaves into my clean pool. This year, I’m going to have Mike standing by with the cover while I’m doing the final cleaning so we can beat Mother Nature for once.

Thanks for stopping by Stamping with Buffy. Have a lovely day!

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