Live Gently Upon This Earth – Celebration of Spring Card

Hi Friends!

Today I have a nature inspired card for you called Live Gently Upon This Earth.  This card is all about the colour green!

Inspiration

I took my inspiration from an Altenew class called In the Mood for Color, which is one of their Level 2 classes and has seven lessons, each featuring a different colour and technique.  I decided to choose green as my colour as green is the colour of nature, and is very soothing and natural.  Spring is most definitely in the air here, despite cool overnight temperatures, and the garden is full of new growth so I wanted to make a card that was very green and leafy and Spring-like.

Overview of my card process

I used the big leaf cluster from the Wallpaper Art stamp set as shown below.

I used a small acrylic block that was just big enough to fit the leafy stamp on, and selected some green Distress Inks, and started stamping my way around the watercolour paper.  My watercolour paper is cut to 5.25 x 8.25″ and it’s a hot press paper.

I ended up with six green Distress Inks – Evergreen Bough, Cracked Pistachio, Shabby Shutters, Mowed Lawn, Twisted Citron, and Peacock Feathers.

I used a water brush to blend out the Distress Inks and make them look like they had been watercoloured.

While my leaf background was drying, I swiped some of the Distress Ink colours out on some scrap card ready for die cutting.

I used the Bold Alpha dies to cut out the word EARTH in three of the ink colours from my background.  I also found this teal coloured cardstock in my stash which matches perfectly for my card base.  Unfortunately it was loose in the box so I don’t know the brand or name of the colour!

I used this Tim Holt sticker – LIVE GENTLY UPON THIS EARTH – and cut the EARTH off the end so that I could place it above my diecut EARTH word instead.

Final touches – edged the EARTH letters with a black Memento marker, and edged the card with Vintage Photo Archival ink, and that was the card complete!

Thoughts

When I started this card I didn’t have a complete plan, only that I was going to use the leaves to stamp around the edges of the card, but as for what to put in the middle, I had no idea.  But once I started the stamping and thinking about Spring and nature and the Earth, things started to come together.  Usually when I use this stamp set, it is all about the flowers, but I really love how the leaves look here on their own, so that was a surprise. I hope you enjoyed reading about this card and that you find inspiration from it.

Challenges

Mix It Up #37 AG and Masking – AG

PROJECT RECIPE:

Altenew – Wallpaper Art stamp set ALT3163, Bold Alpha dies ALT1386
Distress Inks – Evergreen Bough, Cracked Pistachio, Shabby Shutters, Mowed Lawn, Twisted Citron, and Peacock Feathers
HP watercolour paper
Archival Ink – Vintage Photo
Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive
Tim Holtz – small talk stickers
Memento Marker – Tuxedo Black
From stash: scrap white cardstock, water brush, teal cardstock

FYI Here’s a list of all my Class posts for Level 2:

.Beyond Basic Backgrounds
.In the Mood for Color You are here
.With A Twist
.Creative Watercolor Media
.Polychromatic
.Beautiful Details
.Color Your Day
.Impressive Heat Embossing
.Magical Marker Techniques
.Masking Unleashed

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