Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Friends, Flora, and Fauna

I am making ornaments for a nature friendly, 'edible' Christmas tree. I am part of the Franciscan Team at work and I volunteered to decorate one of the twenty Christmas trees scattered throughout the student union. It is a competition between campus organizations. As un-Christian and un-Franciscan as it might sound...I WANT TO WIN!!!! But mostly - I REALLY need to learn how NOT to volunteer.

Since St. Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals and the college I work for is a Franciscan university, I wanted to incorporate our native wildlife without me having to prowl the 100 acres of native prairie grasslands adjoining campus for sprouts, sprigs, and other such makeshift 'ornaments'. So then I thought  -  why not have the animals come to us? What better way to do that than with smorgasboard tree? We share our campus with dozens of deer, turkey, squirrels, and many, many birds of flight on a daily basis. We might as well give them a Merry Christmas meal too!

Here is my plan: star shaped cookie cutters of sliced white bread, orange slices, cranberry strings, and some nuts. In keeping with the all natural theme - I'll be using 100% cotton thread and jute twine to string up the creations. The tree will be inside until the Christmas break - then I'll move the 'yummy' treats off of the artificial tree to an outdoor tree for 'all God's creatures great and small'. Here is a picture of the stars. I'll keep you posted on the rest of the produce ornaments. Let me know if you have any other suggestions for me to add to the edible list!

Here are three of the 120 stars.

While I had the stars in the oven for some dry-time I managed to put the finishing touches on this card.



Friends in the Garden
~Base card PaperTrey Ink - Kraft cardstock
~Layer of Colorbok Cafe' au Lait
~Layer of light green cardstock with coordinating layer of Colorbok Cafe' au Lait
~Three purple brads
~Layer of purple cardstock
~Sentiment stamped on vanilla cardstock
~Taylored Expressions Friendship Blooms leaf stamp
~Taylored Expressions Leafy Branch die cut
~Taylored Expressions Friendship Blooms flower stamp embossed with purple embossing powder and die cut using Taylored Expressions Friendship Blooms
~Three green brads
Challenges
Scrappy Frogs - kraft
Challenge Up Your Life - friendship
Crafty Ann's - floral frenzy
Frosted Designs - embossing
Paper Crafting Journey - embossing

Thank you for clicking by,
Nancy

9 comments:

  1. Lovely card in those wonderful colors! Like the design too. Just pretty so very pretty with those precious flowers in polka dots too.
    LOVE the idea about your tree on campus! How fun. The star shaped bread is great! Very cute idea and I'll keep my fingers crossed that you WIN!
    Lynn

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  2. Beautiful card, and such a peaceful, content color scheme! It is very calming to me! I love the purple embossed areas! I hope you'll create with us again at Frosted Designs!

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  3. This is a beautiful card, I love the flowers. Thank you for joining us at Frosted Designs. I hope that you enjoyed the challenge

    Amanda

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  4. What a beautiful card, colors, and sentiment. Thanks so much for joining us for a challenge over at Frosted Designs.

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  5. Nancy Perfect card and thanks for sharing. Love those polka dot flowers. Thanks for taking part in Crafty Ann's Challenge this fortnight and best of luck. We hope to see you back again very soon. Best wishes, Kym, Crafty Ann's Design Team xxx

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  6. Such a pretty card Nancy - thank you for sharing them with us at Crafty Ann's
    Ann x

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  7. This is a very nice card! The flowers are gorgeous!
    Thanks for playing with us at Challenge up your life!

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  8. I proud of my self to search your card. Ordering of each card work is totally new and marvelous for me. Such a pretty card and super way you described it.

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  9. You have done very nice work. I really like this card. It is very amazing card its color and image is really very nice.

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