Family Tree

This project was inspired in early summer when my older sister gave me a necklace that had a tree on it and it said, "Family is nature's masterpiece." Really, the credit goes to God, but it's a wonderful necklace and 100% my taste. I have a thing for trees.

Shortly after getting the necklace, I had a vision to make a visual family tree. I set to work drawing the tree. This took MANY hours. It's been a long time since I drew anything other than flowers, rainbows, and sunshines for M. (I used to be a bit of an artist. During college I even took a couple classes...enough for an art concentration with my elementary education degree.) At first I was going to keep the leaves uniform by drawing a pattern first. In the end, I decided to draw each leaf freehand. It makes sense since cutting them out is not an exact science for my hands.

I'm pleased with the outcome. The leaves can hold the name of family members. The circle can hold a family surname or initial. Of course it's important to leave blanks for new spouses, adoptions, or births.

If you make one of your own, please let me know! I do ask that you respect the time and effort I put into this and not copy the tree exactly as it is, but just use it as a guide.

Though I think it would be fun to sell (a tweaked version of) this one day, I am really pleased with how it turned out. The first people to get this were the three friends that signed up for the Pay It Forward post. This is the gift I sent them. They, in turn, choose something...anything...to send to three others.

The three blogging friends who got this (not filled out so that they could frame it and give it as a gift if desired) were Debbie (a friend from my church) at Debbie's Digest, Nicole at The Activity Mom, and Lisa at Cheerios Underfoot.

When I was spending an evening cutting (actually many evenings) the trees and leaves, Derek asked me why I didn't just use the Cricut. Wouldn't that be nice? The Cricut just doesn't do customized cutting for me. Wouldn't that be nice though? (I did use the Cricut for the circle and initial though.)

What do you think? Any suggestions for improving the design before I make any more? I'm already thinking to use darker brown for the tree. I used an off-white paper for the background, but a creamier color might be better. I'm not sure if a printed background would be better. What else might help?