Unexpected Trees

I'm back on Christmas cards again today and I have a couple of "unexpected" trees to share which give you ways to get more from your dies.

Firstly I really wanted to play with the Hero Arts Very Merry Tree Fancy Die and to show you an alternative way to use it.  The die is designed to be used as a panel front design leaving the "tree" as negative space.  Here I've done a quick example of how to use it traditionally and quickly - you could make batch cards with this and get all your cards done in minutes!

However, you can do more with it - instead of cutting it from green card as I have done here, you could cut it again from patterned paper and glue the words on top so the words become like tinsel on your tree. 

If you didn't want to faff wit the extra layer of die cutting - cut the tree from white, place it on a coloured background and use markers to colour the words to get the same effect ;-)

What I wanted to do though was to not be forced to use it as a panel but to have the tree shape as a focal point on my card.

So here  I die cut it from green glitter cardstock from the Concord and 9th pack and then I just cut around the tree shape with scissors to "remove" it from the panel concept.  I wanted more green but as I'm a tight Yorkshire woman, I didn't want to waste all that glitter under the white so I cut thin strips and cut the ends diagonally to form a frame around the white giving a matt look with a 10th of the paper ;-)

For my final card, I was inspired by Jennifer McGuire's recent video where she made a pop up cat tree using the new Mama Elephant stamp and die inside her card using the inside arch die to make the tree pop up on opening.  I thought I could do that with another of my favourite trees from last years Christmas release from Lil' Inker Designs the Christmas Word Tree.

As this die has lots of "space" around the words, I wanted the pop up to be near invisible so I die cut the small arch from acetate and glued the tree to it.  It's nigh on impossible to see in the photo but the arch goes from the R to the M in Christmas.

I just glued it down with Lawn Fawn glue which is super strong but dries clear and used the same on the tabs.  I folded it in half, slotted it into the card, closed it and opened it and it then finds the right place to sit for the pop up to work.

For the front I decided against another tree and went instead with the fun new Ho Ho Ho die from MFT cut from white cardstock covered with Red Ombre Washi Tape from AlteNew.

The "extra" bits the die cuts are designed to make layers so you can do two-coloured words, but they work well as exclamation points too!  I used the inner bit from the biggest Ho to add a sparkle detail to the first one and finished with a couple of crystals.

I hope these give you some inspiration for unexpected trees!