Birch Tree And Deer Silohouette - Masculine NoteCards

Hello Crafty Friends!

Donna Lee here with StampinNScrapinWithDonnaLee here today!  Thank's Sheila for having me over.

Nature is one of my favorite places to go to pray, meditate, and work out. At work we received a Christmas card from a vendor that had a couple of deer in a forest of birch trees. I loved it and wanted to try and make some general note cards using the idea of birch trees and deer. These cards are great for men or women, but I always need men cards, so I am making up a few different ones to have handy.

I was blessed to get a Silhouette Portrait over the recent holidays and while I was waiting for it to arrive I watched quite a few tutorials on You Tube and on the Silhouette America website. I saw many videos where they found images on Google and were able to use the trace feature to make a stamp or to simply cut the image. I made some basic notes on 3X5 index cards to use when my machine showed up.

Once I received the Portrait and got it set up, I made a quick birthday card for my Grandson using the trace feature and some simple images of Autobots and Rescue Bots that I found using Google Image search for his party that falls on Christmas Eve. He loves the Rescue Bots cartoons and I knew he would recognize this emblem of the Autobot.  It was easy to trace and reassemble on this card.

Here is the inside of his card with the Optimus Prime image I located using Google image search and was able to trace and cut. You can size it perfect to your card or project and I love that! I also appreciate that its a free image and I will only use it for my personal use.

After having played with several images and using different features on the trace window for practice, I was ready to tackle something with a little more detail.

I went out to Google and searched for birch tree deer and then clicked on images. This is the image that most closely matched my inspiration card.

It took me about 10 minutes to get this traced to my satisfaction and then I was ready to cut my layers using two different colors of 80# card stock.

I used just one side of the cut from my cocoa card stock to mount on a turquoise piece of card stock. The colors are not right in these photos so I apologize. It looks good with the kraft card base that is an A2 size and the turquoise mat is cut at 4X5.25. I am going to do this cut again using a silver foil paper on top of a brilliant blue mat and I think the contrast will be even better. 

I love the look of using silhouette images on cards that are based on nature. Here's a look at my cuts for my 2nd card. 

You can see I used some very narrow pieces of 3D foam tape to create that extra dimension on the card.

I layered the lighter natural colored card stock cut just off set about 1/16th of an inch to create a shadow. I also used some chalk ink to distress the trees and a red marker to color the bird.

Making the frame was really easy on the Silhouette. Again, I used 3D Foam Tape from Close To My Heart to pop it up to meet the height of my trees and deer. The tape comes with two widths in the pack which is really nice for those thinner cuts.

It's easy to group and ungroup an image on the Silhouette so that you only cut what you need. To be honest I was worried about learning the ins and outs of a new machine, but I love it and have been able to figure most things out pretty quickly. 

I am working on cutting a stencil of another image of birch trees and birds, so I will share that in the near future. I want to do a little more mixed media, so stencils are something I need to be able to make.

Thank you for stopping by my Stampin N Scrapin studio today! Check back again soon for more projects! 

Blessings and Peace!

Donna Lee