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Thursday, November 20, 2014

Birthday card with wood and chevron background

I made this card for my Dad who is turning 85 next week!!  We count every day a blessing that he is still with us and that my parents are still living independently.
I started with a green card front which I stippled (SU) with brown ink in an all over pattern. I created two pieces of background paper by gluing 3/4" strips of green decorative paper diagonally to a half sheet of cardstock.  I cut them into 1" strips and then glued them to each other using cello tape to create a chevron pattern.  I glued five strips together matching the pattern to which gave me 3 pieces of background paper.  I cut each one of these in two which gave me 6 pieces of chevron paper.
To embellish the one on this card, I used a 90 degree corner of cardstock to mask off the chevrons and sponged on some brown ink to give them some dimension.  I added some faux stitching on one edge using a brown fine tip Sharpie and glued it to the left side of my card front.  I used a digital image of tools from Beccy's Place which I laser printed, trimmed, watercoloured and sponged a bit on the edges after I had distressed them.  I glued it to my card front with 3D foam tape overlapping the background a bit.  I mounted my sponged and watercoloured oval punchie greeting to a thin piece of walnut wood and tucked it under my image and glued it in place using double sided tape.
I like to use actual pieces of wood on my Dad's cards because he was a carpenter all his life.  In my mind, he and wood are very connected.  I am fortunate that DH is a wood worker and brings in any thin pieces of wood that he creates in the course of making projects in the garage.  This particular piece comes from a cross grain cutting board that he and my son worked on a while back.

Therese