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12/07/2014

Christmas Tree Recycle

Good evening - thanks for dropping by to visit. After a very gray & dreary Saturday we had some lovely sun and about 60F temps today. Very pleasant, except for occasional wind. We just finished up the front Christmas lights - for the afternoon anyway. Mr. had gotten our Santa sleigh & reindeers operational. Only part of the sleigh was lighted & then with the rain Saturday, we both just lazed around inside, staying dry. It wasn't the kind of day one wanted to be working outside. We got the icicle lights strung along the gutters hanging over the front porch. That went better than I expected (You'll remember that blurb that went around on email about when you're choosing the guy you want to marry...you want to see how he handles Christmas lights! Mr. is NOT that guy who has the real good humor with untangling/testing/putting up Christmas lights. Nah...he'd have lost out on that one!! - well, I would have too, as it's not my happiest thing to do). I untangled some strings of lights we didn't use on the front porch, so we may put some along the back deck rails. We both commented this might be our last year of doing outside decorations. Most of the folks in our neighborhood decorate, so we feel a little like Mr. Scrooge when we do nothing..which we have some years due to circumstances. Still need to get down some inside things, but that chore doesn't depend on the weather.

Ok...today's card has been made, just haven't done the photo. For long years I've saved cards that were sent to us, with the thought that 'someday' I would do 'something' with them..as they were just too pretty to throw away. During our declutter project earlier this year, I did go through & toss some humorous cards. Today's card was very simply done with the tree on gold & white. When I spotted it, I knew immediately how it would recycle.


- the tree is atop a black ribbon texture background, with a wider original gold mat on white. Trimmed to keep a scant gold mat, then added another white & gold matting frame with layers raised on dimensional foam squares.

- World Win white c/s was embossed with the Sizzix Knit Texture fade (looks like a Nordic patterned sweater, in case you can't see the pattern in the photo).

- Impression Obsession sentiment was cut from a remaining snippet of the original gold mat trim. Gold star was punched from the same snippet.  The star is a bit out of proportion, but it was the smallest punch I have.

Thanks for all the kind comments about the tribute to Bernie. I just felt some words were due for a very Special Lady who gave so many of us, so much encouragement. I forgot to mention that Bernie also introduced me to Our Darnell, with a link to a post about Onion Layers. It was very inspirational & I just tried to find that particular post but couldn't. Need to clean out my bookmarks as I have way too many to try to find something!

So have a grand evening, God Bless & big hugs. Hope to see ya later, if I can get some good photos of our Christmas decorations lighted up after it gets dark enough tonight.

18 comments:

  1. What an elegant, gorgeous card, Mary!! The tree is so beautiful!! I love the embossing!! It's absolutely stunning!! I love, love it!! I would love to see pics of your outdoor lights!! Have a wonderful evening :)

    Lisa
    A Mermaid's Crafts

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  2. Evening Mary, sounds like you've been having lots of fun putting up your lights lol! Look forward to seeing your photos. I have yet to start putting up our decorations! am well behind lol! but I'll get there. We had snow here today but fortunately it melted quite quickly, thank goodness! More is forecast for overnight tonight. I just hope it doesn't happen lol! The older I get, the more I dislike snow. It causes so....many problems for everyone. Love your card by the way, simple but very effective! less is more comes to mind. Take care Hun. Love and Hugs Jennifer xx

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  3. Love the recycled card and beautiful tree,love the embossed background and thank you for your Anniversary wishes
    Carol x

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  4. This is a beautiful Christmas tree and so pretty on the black! Love that EF! Hadn't seen it before. I saved some cards to recycle, buy ended up giving them to a group that was using them to make ornaments to put in Salvation Army bags. They use them at the Women's prison here too. They do make pretty recycles!

    My DH isn't one to do the lights. He leaves the house and I do them. Hence no lights outside since I'm too short and can't maneuver the ladder. He did bring the ladder in the house so we could get a candle in the window over the stairway. That was a big help.

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  5. Very pretty! I love to recycle cards too! They're too nice to waste!

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  6. Great card, Mary. Love the EF you've used. x

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  7. What a beautiful save on this card! I love the black background for the beautiful tree, and the embossed background looks gorgeous with the gold accents! NJ!

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  8. CAS and beautiful! I've saved cards for years too - and then forget all about recycling them. Love that tree and the elegant look of this.
    We keep cutting back on our decorations every year. Pretty soon, we'll be down to just saying Merry Christmas to each other! LOL! Hopefully not though. It's a lot of work to get out all the decorations - and then put them back up!
    Lynn

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  9. The texture from embossing is quite striking, Mary. The sparkly tree and the matting looks great. I'm impressed with your recycling and your tales of decorating for the holidays :)

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  10. We are not putting up anything other than the cards, a small nativity and one other hanging ornament - we have very young family staying with us and anything else would be too tempting for one young boy!
    Love that re-cycling - it has made a stunning card.
    Blessings
    Maxine

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  11. Fabulous upcycling Mary! I hope you'll be doing more of this :)

    I found the post about the onion layers on Darnell's blog here: http://www.djkardkreations.com/2012/06/one-layer-wednesday-92-on-edge.html

    Back in June (15th I think) 2012!

    Oh no, did you add word verification to your blog? Hope I can manage that and post this comment!

    Hugs

    Di xx

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  12. Just beautiful, Mary, and you've made it so elegant with the black and gold....very good job recycling.

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  13. Hi Mary,

    Your upcycled tree card is really stunning!

    Thank you for the mention with regard to Bernie and my onion post. You don't need to edit and add it (but thank you to Di for finding it). I plan to repost it on my own blog when I do a post about Bernie after the first of the year and the holidays are behind us. I have lots of new readers since June of 2012, so it will be nice if I freshen it up and post it again.

    I woke up to the dam reCAPcha thing "prove you're not a robot" on my blog, too, and according to comments on Facebook, it's happening to most of us. Oh, why, do those blogger boogers have to mess with us every few months??????????????? I get complaints when readers access my post with the embedded list open and not the popup, because of "all that scrolling!" so I think I'm going to wait until tomorrow and hope they fix it. I have another large hop on Wednesday and am praying they fix it by then!!

    Finally, I loved the tour of the Christmas lights!! Well done to you and your Mr! Hugs, Darnell

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  14. Gorgeous card Mary, love the gold and black, very elegant, hugs Kate x

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  15. Somehow I missed this post Momma Mary, but glad that I saw it cause I think this card is gorgeous! I love the simplicity of it. Just beautiful Momma Mary and a great way to recycle parts of those beautiful cards we all get. Hugs, Brenda

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  16. Great job recycling that beautiful tree image Mary. I have saved cards too ... but have not done anything with them. We always have the best intentions, but not necessarily the time :) ... so glad you made the effort - the card is beautiful. Loll xx

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  17. Elegant recycling there Mary, well done.

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