Tree Rings

The Funkie Junkie Boutique Inspiration Avenue is highlighting a the Sizzix Chapter 4 release.  I knew right away I wanted to feature the beautiful tree rings texture folder.

The rings of the tree are so beautiful and showcase the life of the tree.  I knew I wanted to use them to create beautiful layers of texture.

I generated many pieces of embossed backgrounds and ended up highlighting two of them. The backgrounds were both white cardstock that were embossed using the texture fade.

The next step was to take that embossed background and add color.  I had all the beautiful Distress Mica Stain sprays from the fall and winter releases sitting on my desk and decided to use them on my cards.

For my first background I used the Antique Bronze spray and spritzed the background completely.  After it dried I decided to tear the edges to create a rough effect.  I spritzed some of the edges to blend in with the effect. 

After I had that beautiful background ready it was easy enough to die cut a variety of leaves and spray them with a mix of the mica stain sprays and layer them into a wreath.  

I finished the wreath off with a sweet bird and a little message across the wreath.

On my next card the background started again from a white piece of cardstock.  I embossed the cardstock using the texture fade tree rings.  The background was spritzed with a mix of mica stains starting with the pretty Harvest Moon.  While that was still wet I mixed in some of the Decayed colors and spritzed on water to move the colors and blend them together.  

After it had dried completely, I used a layer of clear embossing powder to highlight the colors and add a shine.  I die cut the center of the tree rings (to be used in the future).  I used a remnant of an inky background to pop behind the tree rings. 

I die cut some feathers and another bird to use as accents.  The feathers were cut from the same inky background.  I added a hint of stamping to the bird and feathers.  

The rest was just layering up the embellishments to the card and adding a sentiment. 

Suzz