Lovely As a Tree

One of my favourite stamp sets is a set consisting of nothing but trees.  The set is called Lovely As a Tree and the images are below.

This set is a classic and indeed has been one that has remained in the Stampin' Up catalogue for sometime now.  It lends itself beautifully when creating masculine greetings as well as sympathy greetings.  Tonight I played a bit with this set, starting off with a background layer of Bashful Blue stamped randomly using the flower image from the "Field Flowers" set.  I stamped in Craft Whisper White.

If you stamp randomly, you create a pretty and subtle background paper.   Below is the finished card.

I used markers in Olive and Early Espresso to ink up the tree.  I didn't reink between the 3 images, thus creating the illlusion of depth as the images stamp progressively lighter.   And below is a close up.

I quite liked the way this turned out.  The blue and brown are fabulous together.

We are nearing the end of this year -- christmas is 11 days away.  Time is flying by, it is scary.  Do you have any New Year's resolutions you are mulling over?  Last year, my resolution was to start a muscle/strength program aside from the cardio I do at the gym.  It has worked quite well and I've progressively been able to lift heavier and heavier weights at the gym.  For those of you who want to try working out to build or tone muscle, here are some tips!

1. Always remember to breathe. This seems obvious, but when you're in the middle of an exercise you may actually forget. In most cases you'll exhale when you do the hard work (e.g. the pushing up part of a push up), and inhale on the easier part (e.g. when you lower your body for the push up).   When I first started training with a trainer, I had difficulty with this and always seemed to do the breathing in reverse.  I've since corrected this. 
   
2. Form is extremely important. If you do an exercise wrong, what seems like progress initially will quickly dissipate and possibly result in injury. Be sure you're doing the exercises correctly before you begin. Ask a friend to watch your form first. If you are a newbie with muscle and strength workouts, getting a trainer to teach you good form is a smart start. 
   
3. Take it slowly. While aerobic exercise if often the exception, most other exercise is best performed slowly. This doesn't mean you should take long breaks in between each push up and sit up, but that you shouldn't perform each as quickly as possible. Going slowly will work the muscle more and make you stronger.
4. Your goal is to fail. The key to a good work out is failure. That doesn't mean giving up because you're frustrated and tired, but rather pushing the limits of your strength until your strength is spent. Obviously you don't want to push yourself to the point of injury, but that shouldn't be a concern so long as you're exhibiting the proper form. Don't worry too much about the number of repetitions of any given exercise, but instead concentrate on working as hard as you can. A larger number of push ups doesn't necessarily mean you're stronger. Some days you'll have more energy than others and will perform better. Some days you'll perform worse. The key is to do the best you can with all of the energy you have. If you fail, you succeed.  You should train to total failure, i.e. your muscles are spent and can no longer lift another rep.

There are many other things to remember, but these 4 core rules are what my trainer taught me right from the start, and I've only had one injury so they must be good rules!