Saturday, March 27, 2021

Tolkien Reading Day

Hi Crafty Friends,

It’s challenge time with the “Crazies” over on the Crazy 4 Challenges blog.  Maryann our challenge hostess for the month, finishes off her month with one last challenge.

Today is Tolkien Reading day, named after the Author J R R Tolkien, create a card using one of his books for inspiration and make sure that you add gold in some form on your card

This challenge was tough! as I don't have anything stamps or dies which are Tolkien related as such, so it took a while to finally work out what I was going to create. I did remember I had Hello Bluebirds Cozy Burrow Scene die set which I got last year and hadn't used, this die set had the tree trunk at the top of the die and then shows an underground scene. It's an A2 sized die, but as I like creating Slimline cards I wanted to see if I could convert it to a slimline card.

The inspiration for my card comes from Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit who appeared in two of J R R Tolkien's books ... The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. His house was a small Hobbit Hole, which does go underground ... which is why I decided to use the Cozy Burrow Scene die. I also remember that in Lord of the Rings, dwarves came to visit the Baggins in his house. As you can see I didn't end up using dwarves, I used Bears instead.

To create my card I used Trinity Stamps Slimline Stitched Card Panels and Windows die set to create my background panel. I die cut all the pieces from Hello Bluebird's Cozy Burrow Scene die ... this includes the tree trunk, the fireplace. I worked out the different levels I would need for above ground, the walls and floor and used Distress Oxide & Distress Inks to color the various pieces/levels.

I used one of the grass border dies from Lawn Fawn's Grassy Hillside Borders die set, to add some grass behind the tree trunk. 

For the floor I used Penny Black's Wood Floor die which I colored using Distress Oxide inks and added to the bottom of the panel.

To decorate the fireplace, I used Distress Oxide inks and Honey Bee Stamps Perfect Bricks Stencil to add the brick detail to the fireplace. 

I die cut an oval die from Karen Burniston's Ovals - Crosshatch die set to create a rug for the floor.

I used Lawn Fawn's Den Sweet Den stamp set  to add the bears, the books also help tie in the Tolkien Reading Day as the bears like books, maybe those are his books in the scene. I added Mama Bear and the cubs inside the burrow and Papa Bear is sleeping on the tree trunk (maybe he needed some peace and quiet, lol!)

To help the card tie in with the theme of the challenge, I stamped a sign and stamped the word "Baggins" on it and added it behind the bear.



I normally create some sort of pop-up or fancy element for the inside of my card when doing these challenges, but for my card today I kept it simple and flat. I added the birthday sentiment from Made To Surprise's Sentiment stamp set and added two of the bear images that I used on the front of the card.


Don't forget to check out the rest of the “Crazies” cards over on the Crazy 4 Challenges blog and also their individual blogs for more details.



1 comment:

Karen Aicken said...

Wow - love how you made that challenge work for your card!