Thursday, September 25, 2014

A Walk in the Wild for The Paper Players




Where I am staying right now, with my daughter up in central BC, which we consider to be north, due to cold, cold winters, it is a haven for wildlife.  Right now, bears abound in and around the town. The salmon run has not been very large this year because water levels in the rivers are low.  The summer was so dry that the berry crop was poor as well.  So, in order to survive this winter, the bears need to build up their fat stores and they are coming into the town to raid the fruit trees and garbage cans.  My daughter saw one on their street as she was walking home one day.

                                     

Another species that is abundant in the area is moose.  They pose a hazard on the highway, given their penchant for charging cars from out of nowhere.  At an average of 1000 pounds each, they can do major damage to both you and your car. What is interesting is that they are being endangered in this area by a very small species known as the winter tick. The winter tick infests the moose by the thousands and can actually drain the blood supply of a single moose.

When The Paper Players came out with their challenge this week, I knew the the moose from  Walk in the Wild would be the star of the show, on a masculine birthday card.  As I was also designing some cards using burlap for my next Technique Nights, I planned for a burlap background to add to the masculine appeal.





  • It seems like I often go to monochromatic palettes in shades of browns when I do masculine cards.  I know it doesn't need to be that way, but I really like the somewhat vintage look myself, so it is the first thing I think of.  In this case I used Soft Suede.
  • The burlap ribbon we have is only 1 1/4" wide, and I needed more of that to produce a backdrop for the main image.  I used three pieces of the ribbon 4 inches long and then I frayed the outside edges.  For the left ribbon, that meant fraying the left side of the ribbon as well as the bottom and top. For the right ribbon that meant fraying the right side of the ribbon as well as the bottom and the top.  For the middle ribbon, I only frayed the top and bottom.  Then they were adhered to the card side by side and it creates a pretty good facsimile of a frayed piece of burlap.
  • The birthday sentiment is from Four You and I added an Antique Brad for balance.  I've been dying to use one of the sentiments from @SoSocial, so I chose @oneraddad and stamped it in Early Espresso ink on one of the Essentials Wooden Elements.
Thanks for popping by today, and join me tomorrow for a new As You See It Challenge card.




Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!

  Product List

4 comments :

  1. Heather, thanks for the insights on the bear and moose in your daughter's neighborhood. It's going to be a long winter for the bears and I wasn't aware of the tick and Moose.

    Love your card and how you tied it to your trip. The burlap behind really gives great texture and reminds me of early winter when the leaves and shrubs are brown and sleeping!

    So glad you joined us at the Paper Players this week
    Jaydee

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  2. I love your vintage look....and although I have great respect for wildlife, I am glad there are no bears or moose in my area!! So glad you played with the Players this week!

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  3. Fantastic card, Heather! I love how you used the burlap. Thanks for sharing the extra info on the bears and moose. Really interesting! Thanks for joining us at The Paper Players.

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  4. This was such an interesting post Heather - very informative! I love the burlap background you created for your moose and the little woodn sentiment tag. A great CAS masculine birthday card. Thanks for joining us at The Paper Players this week!

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