There Was a Crooky Tree...

A Brief Story
Once upon a time (let's call it Spring 2016), there was a Queen (let's call her Catherine Pooler) who had begun creating toyboxes (let's call them Stamp of Approval collections) to the great joy of her beloved subjects who adored these boxes more than the Queen ever anticipated they would. A new toybox was released every three months, and preparation for each of these boxes began many months prior to their release. The Queen, who loved her subjects very much and wanted to please them, had a special group of highly devoted followers (let's call this group StampNation), and she periodically asked this group what they would like to see in future toyboxes.

One toybox contained toys that were about birthday celebrations, and one toy in particular deeply amused the Queen's subjects, especially one named Joyce. This toy was called the Crooky Cake ("crooky" being short for crooked), and it looked somewhat like this:

Joyce had great fun stamping and die-cutting and layering the Crooky Cake, so much so that when the Queen asked her devoted followers what they might like in a Christmas-themed toybox, Joyce suggested that the Queen could offer a Crooky Christmas Tree. And guess what! Many months later, lo and behold, the Queen released a toybox with just such a tree! And there was great rejoicing, and Joyce was once again deeply amused.

The End.

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With Christmas slowly closing in, I found myself increasingly eager to open up the Candy Cane Lane Stamp of Approval and start making some Christmas cards with it. Along came the sketch for the Splitcoaststampers challenge SC619 -

- and I just knew I had to bring the Crooky Tree into the picture. And I did! Here's how the card turned out:

... and here's the inside:

I had a great deal of fun putting together a bunch of matching Crooky Trees and using them in my cards. I made one of the above cards and then decided it was time for me to start making multiples of my Christmas cards assembly-line style if I was serious about making fifty of them this year. And that's when I made these four cards:

They are almost identical with one major difference. Can you spot it?

If you noticed that I used different embossing powder on each card, you got the answer right. The first (and my favorite) card's sentiment is embossed with gold detail embossing powder. On the second card I used Ranger's Platinum. The card below is embossed with silver detail embossing powder, and the last one is clear embossing powder over Black Onyx VersaFine ink.

I used my MISTI to stamp the peppermint stick backgrounds in Pink Pirouette and then die cut them with a stitched rectangle die.  Next I cut the vellum cardstock panels down to size and used a scalloped stitch die to fancy up the edges. I embossed each sentiment, then folded the ends around to the back and fastened them with simple tape. I attached the trees with Stampin' Dimensionals, added some sequins, and voila'! The card fronts were done.

Here's how the insides look:

In retrospect, I would have used a different sentiment or embossed each one to coordinate with the sentiment on the front... but hindsight is 20/20, isn't it? The baubles or ornaments in five different colors from the tree bounce around inside the card as well as on the envelopes. 

Oh! I almost forgot to mention: One card is on a Pink Pirouette base while the rest are on Whisper White. Why the difference? It's because I had a mishap and accidentally glued the card front on upside down on one of them. It was easier to get to the colored cardstock than the Heavy Whisper White, so one's an oddball. I think it's pretty, though.

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So with this post you have now seen everything I've made to date! It's time for me to clean up, regroup, and get back to the drawing board. I hope to get at least one batch done this weekend since on Tuesday (November 22, two days before Thanksgiving) I begin the process of tooth extractions in order to get full dentures. I have no idea how functional I'll be afterwards, but I'll get back to crafting as soon as I can. It'll be my therapy. :)

In case I don't report back here until after the holiday, let me wish all of my American friends a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Toothy smiles,
Joyce Spear a.k.a. StamperJoyce