A Tinsel Town Challenge

The last Heart 2 Heart challenge of the year is to use Silver, Black and Lagoon in a project.  At the risk of showing my age, I got to thinking about the artificial trees of my childhood which were aluminum. (Just in case you have ever wondered why Linus knocks on a tree and hears a hollow metal sound when he and Charlie Brown go Christmas tree shopping in "A Charlie Brown Christmas")  I knew that I wanted to use this tree from the Holiday Wishes stamp set and that this sketch from Atlantic Hearts was the perfect one to show it off.

First I cut Shape8 using Close to My Heart's Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge and embossed the tree using Ranger's Super Fine Silver embossing powder.  To embellish the tree I used a ShinHan Peacock Green marker to color some Clear sparkles and, because I did not have enough Black Bitty sparkles, I used a Black marker to color some Clear ones.  How did I get that black border so narrow?  Did I use the Cricut Design Space?  Sadly, no because I do not have a Cricut Explore (yet).  I hope to get one for Christmas as it is at the top of my wishlist and DH is a pretty smart man...  In the meantime, on my Expression the default is to cut in .25 inch increments, but if you go into settings, you have the options of .10 inches, centimeter, and millimeter increments.  I changed my setting to .10 inches and cut a shape in black which was .10 inch bigger.  I had intended on cutting an additional layer using Silver Glitter paper, but I found I liked it with just the black border against the Lagoon background.  Because I did not need to allow room for extra layers, I made a second card with the shape8 cut larger enough to include a sentiment from the same stamp set stamped with black pigment ink and embossed with clear detail powder.

I am not sure which card I like best.  What do y'all think?  Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi