Lovely As A Tree

I made a card using today's Mojo Monday sketch.  At first I thought I'd rotate it so that the scalloped border was at the bottom, but then I decided to turn it sideways.  I'm also going to enter this card in the current Cute Cards Thursday challenge which was to use trees and/or leaves.

I used the SU! set "Lovely as a Tree" for my image.  I stamped the trees in Basic Brown and then added some sponging with Bashful Blue and Mellow Moss.  The image was cut out using Nesties.  I traced the outer edge of the largest oval Nestie to make the mat for the image and then cut it out by hand.  I'm so anxious to get some of those new Mega Nesties as I think they are going to be just what I have been hoping for - larger sizes that will be better for larger stamped images (my trees didn't quite all fit into the largest of the large oval Nesties) and the 6" square cards that I so love to make!     

For the dp, I used Basic Gray's "Capella."  I hadn't cut into this paper pad yet, and the soft colors are very soothing.  I added a little more ink to the edges of the leafy print paper (Distress ink - Frayed Burlap).  I matted all of the pieces on chocolate chip SU! cardstock.  The scallop edge and the lattice edge were punched with MS border punches.  The lattice edge punch has Vintage Photo distress ink added to it.

The bow is 1.25" ivory silk ribbon that was tied with my Bow Easy.  I added a small brown button and used embroidery floss to tie a bow on top of it.  I thought I was done at this point, and then looked back at the sketch and saw the flower, so I just added an ivory Prima rose and a MS leaf with Vintage Photo distress ink sponged on the edges.

I'm down to the last full week of summer vacation. Our first day of inservice is August 26th, and I still have a lot of things on my summer to do list that haven't gotten done.  Usually at this point of the summer, I'm starting to get excited about the upcoming school year.  This year, I'm still waiting for that excitement to kick in for me!   I think that all of the time I spent this summer on finishing my second master's degree has led to me feeling that way.  Once the school year starts and I'm not taking classes, doing research, and writing papers, I think that I will appreciate that I devoted time this summer to finishing my degree rather than putting it off and finishing in December.  If the teaching assignments have not changed, I'll have four sections of ninth grade Biology, one section of Honors Biology (also ninth graders), and one section of AP Biology (juniors and seniors).  

I'd better quit rambling on and on and get to the store for some groceries.  That is the one job that absolutely has to be done today!  I don't mind grocery shopping unless there are long checkout lines.  At that point, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep Ariel from becoming too impatient.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Sarah