Thursday 1 October 2009

Tree Envy

You know how it is; you want to make a handful of nice Christmas cards, you want to use relatively traditional images and you'd like them (please) to be relatively straightforward so you can produce dozens (in minutes, preferably). Yep. Well, first I had to get over the fact that my much reduced collection of Christmas stamps didn't feature one single Christmas tree. Lordy. So I made a mission of setting this right, and have achieved a pleasing erm, forest, frankly. And the tree you see featured in today's horribly lit photo is the very last one I thought I'd ever buy. It's from the Dee Gruenig range. But surely, I hear you cry, even you Julia, could scribble that with a broad nibbed pen. Yeah. I fell into that trap too - and wasted more minutes than I needed to trying to reproduce it satisfactorily, even once. And I couldn't. Mr Dunnit pointed out that buying the stamp meant that I could reproduce it 8 kerjillion times without using a whole pad of paper, in any colour I liked and, extra Christmassy bonus: Miss Dunnit wouldn't learn even more anti-social vocabulary whilst I struggled with my 'art'. Oh, OK then. So I bought it. This was last year. And this year, I'm still loving this ridiculously simple scribble tree. And I still can't copy it with a pen. How I wish I could even scribble to a standard like this! I've learned my lesson too - if I look at an image and think 'I can probably draw that' - I can't. Just buy the damn stamp.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you know ... I have those stamps ... I love them too ... and I also thought that I would be able to draw it easily ... Duh! I learned quickly that Dee Gruenig has far more talent than I :0)

Mole said...

Your scribble rant did make me laugh - and I know EXACTLY what you mean!

ally fiddy said...

yummy trees!

Ginny said...

gorgeous trees, how come something as simple as a scribble is sooo hard to reproduce...lol

Angie said...

It may look like a scrible ... pened in a swish of creativity ... but I bet it took hours and endless attempts ... to get it just right lol ...so it is best to buy the stamp to save even more ... dare I say more ...grey hairs xx

Yvonne said...

LOL, you hit the nail on the head .. and yes i have tred to do this too.
Such a simple but wonderful card, and yes, perfect for sending 100's of cards ( with out trying to scribble)in an instance!

Paige said...

It's beautiful!!!!! I LoVe and I WANT it!!!!! how did you make the snow??? please?

Carmen said...

Gorgeous it is - and have been guilty of saying the same thing numerous times only to be proven wrong... numerous times. I love this card and am also loving the snow effect too.

CoventryAnn said...

Great tree. Was interested in your comment about reproducing similar christmas cards to make the job easier.... i set off with this idea, and then i just get bored and start fiddling about with the original design. No wonder mine take me so long :(

Alix said...

oooh i love your christmas card design...its fabby! your scribbling story is sooo funny...i do have a little hint tho...if you cut a tree shape out of scrap paper and use the hole as a template it might help...but then again i'd just buy the stamp if it were me!! ;)

Fiona said...

Pst SU do lots of lovely Christmas stamp stamps! lol - but your trees are lovely! Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree, La la la la la la la la!

Anne said...

Lovely stamp.

I have been there so many times - it looks so simple, surely even I could draw that? But no, I can't. So I buy the stamps. Lots of them.

I'm no artist, that's for sure!