My passion is making simple cards inspires me to create this hub tutorials. Whenever you go to the store you see many cards with simple pictures, so over the years I always like to think of how I can create my own. Not only is your own card creation unique, but why spend money when you already have all the supplies needed for making a special card? Some of the pictures I create for cards are elaborate, but I prefer simple because these are drawings I can do quickly. My card drawings are often based on digital photos I take, and this particular one is based on a tree outside of my house. The picture of the tree was taken in the autumn, so I decided to focus on the trunk and the branches of this wonderful O2 giver!

Here is a list of the supplies I used to make this simple tree card:

• a blending stump
• grey and blue colored pencils
• cardstock
• a drawing pencil

My goal this year is to resurrect and finish all of my uncompleted arts and crafts projects.  Last fall I used some left over card stock from another project and decided to draw a picture of the tree in my backyard.  At the time I forgot about this card, until I came across it a couple of days ago.  I finally decided to finish adding color the tree so I can send the card off to a friend.

Use the grey colored pencil to start shading in the tree. In areas that are darker I press down harder, and in lighter spot I use a more subtle hand.

 In this step I completed shading in the tree with my grey colored pencils.  Since this is a water color pencil it is very easy to shade and make the dark and lighter areas.

For my simple sky I decided to use the color deep cobalt, which is a lovely water colored pencil that blends and shades very well.  Using water colored pencils is a pure joy because one can gentle mix the colors together while coloring.  Some people think coloring is only for kids, but I guarantee that this is a calming activity that mature people can enjoy to.  Besides, think of all the money you will be saving on those pre-made scrap booking and card making images when you draw the simple pictures yourself!

 One thing that is nice about using colored pencils to fill in the sky is how often the even tones mimic the real differences in shades one sees when looking up above.  However, a blending stump is a great tool for evening out color, especially if the card picked up bumps from the service it was being colored on.  I love my blending stump, and I use a piece of sandpaper to take to clean it in between uses.  This is critical because you do not want to use the blending stump on pencil shading and not take off the excess color, which can smudge other drawing where you use the stump.  The sandpaper is ideal for cleaning the blending stump and helping to sand it back down into a fine tip.

After blending the sky a little bit I decided to go back with my deep cobalt blue color and add a bit more.  Once I am happy with my card it is ready to be personalized with a message and sent off to friends.  Happy crafting and do not be afraid to attempt to make your own simple cards today!