Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Cheery Cherries for a Darling Daughter

Soon it will be my daughter's 12th birthday. I cannot believe how she has grown in the past year, going from a little girl to a willowy pre-teen. She loves that her birthday is in June, for many reasons. One thing we have always associated with her birthday is that our cherry tree usually bears lots of fruit right around her special day. We would serve a big bowl of cherries at her outdoor family birthday parties. This year, for whatever reason, there is hardly any fruit at all on it, and I am missing those big, dark red, sweet beauties!

I thought a cherry card would be an appropriate theme for Haley's big day this year. I am following a sketch from Splitcoaststampers (SC278) that was recently issued (I'm a bit behind, though; it's not the most recent sketch). And I was also inspired not only by the big cherry tree outside my window, but also by my friend Emily's card (her username is ejkeaton on SCS). It was a beautiful card featuring cherries, and I just love it.

Regarding the construction of my focal point's background, I have to say I had a really hard time making my Stampin' Up! Punched Scallop border and corner punches to work in tandem. Sometime ago, I had found a source on Gretchen Barron's website, a guide to cutting squares and rectangles with this punch duo. I guess I need to reread it, because I spent far too much time and wasted too much cardstock (sniff) trying to get this black square to look good. I did use Gretchen's suggested sizes, but somehow I still managed to mess up lots of squares. What I did was this: cut a 2 1/2" square of black cardstock and use ONLY the border punch. It was somewhat off, as you can see, but I kind of like the added square-ish decorations on the corners. Or is that me giving up and being lazy? ;)


Happy Stamping,
Colleen

Stamps: none
Paper: cherries dp from Stampin' Up, Basic Black, Real Red, Kiwi Kiss, White from PaperTrey Ink
Ink: Real Red (sponged around cherries), Kiwi Kiss (sponged around leaves)
Punches: 3/4" circle, 5 Petal flower, punched scallop border (all SU)
Other: dimensionals, sponge




2 comments:

Andrea Ewen said...

Lazy or not, I like it! It looks like a Nestability Pendant die, in fact, maybe they'll make one like this and call it the 'Dietrich Design'! I like that too! All kidding aside, this is a lovely card and I hope your daughter has a wonderful birthday. Keep bringin' on the awesomeness!

Emily Keaton said...

I am flattered and honored to be CASEd and mentioned by a high-profile blogger!! Oh, aren't you a sweetie?!?!?!? Cherries are a huge hit in our house, too--my hubby's favorite fruit!! Each year we wait with bated breath for luscious Bing cherries to come into season. Unfortunately for us, we have to pick ours (up) at the grocery store, not a convenient tree in our yard. Lucky you!!!!

I love how your card turned out!! Your cherries are beautiful--I can't believe you constructed those just from punchez!!! Awesome job on that. Oh, and thanks for the link to Gretchen's website. I'd done some messing around myself to come up with a few measurements that worked for me, but it's handy to have (an easily locatable) list and she lists more than I was able to come up with!!

Oh, by the way, for my cherries card, the my center frame was punched from a 2-inch square of cardstock using just the SU scallop trim CORNER punch. I saw that on an SU You Tube video that demonstrated using the border and corner punchez. But I also like the look of your frame using just the border punch on the 2.5" square!!! Very cool :)

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