Life Is Beautiful Card Celebrating God's Goodness Tu B'Shvat

Happy Wednesday crafty friends,

I hope you are having a good week so far. Keeping warm at least. This is the time of year I am very grateful that I live in Florida. Having been born and raised in Michigan, I have certainly gone through my share of “Winter Weather”. Our town used to get a lot of the “lake effect” snow drifts, etc.  Having to get up extra early to go out, warm up the car, clean the car off and then get ready to go outside….yeah….don’t miss it a bit!  So my heart really goes out to all those that do endure this time of year.  Anyway, today’s project is about a celebration that I am learning about called Tu B’Shvat. It is similar to our Arbor Day here in America.  It is the Jewish celebration in which they plant new trees, get to eat fruit from ones previously planted (after a waiting period) and generally a time in which to thank the Lord for the provision and blessing of the different fruit trees, etc. As a Christian it is very interesting to me that our Holy Bible has much to say about the conduct and manner in which we are to treat God’s creation as well as in specific the land of Israel. I think there is much wisdom that we can tend to "overlook" here in typical "western theology".

"When you come to the land and you plant any tree, you shall treat its fruit as forbidden; for three years it will be forbidden and not eaten. In the fourth year, all of its fruit shall be sanctified to praise the L-RD. In the fifth year, you may eat its fruit". -Leviticus 19:23-25

So here is my finished card. It is what I call an UNPLUGGED card. Meaning there was no electricity required to create it. The finished size is 5 x 6.5. I used a kraft cardstock base and then cut a white mat.

I then cut another piece of kraft cardstock. I embossed the kraft mat with my wood embossing folder and used my Cuttlebug to do the embossing. I then used my saddle ink pad and sponge and sponged some ink over the embossing. I love how the ink really picked up and accentuated the embossed grain.

Here’s a closer look at the butterflies. I used the Your own kind of wonderful stamp set to stamp the butterflies. I used my Lagoon ink pad and then cut them out. You can also see the gold sequins.

Here’s a closer look at the ribbon and the gold shimmer trim that I used.

Here’s a closer look t the trees. I used the Always Grateful stamp set. I stamped them with my topiary ink pad, I then turned to my colored pencils to create the grass and also to color in the trees. I also used the colored pencils to color in the sky. I then inked the edges to give it a bit more intense color around the edges. I used my Lagoon ink pad for that. I then used my black ink pad and a sentiment from the Your Own Kind of Wonderful Stamp set. I added a white mat underneath and then used some foam tape to give it all a little lift.

Here’s one last look at the finished card. It was a lot of fun to put this together and quite easy too.

Products Used For This Project

Well that about covers it for today. As always, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your crafty time with me. Be sure to stop back by tomorrow for another inspiring project. Until then,