HYCCT1227 - Missing Aspens

Here's another CAS card using a set from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps. This time I used Calm and Gentle. The designer, Michele, explained that she had aspens in mind when she designed the set. I'm from Colorado too and my family is there, watching the aspens turn golden while I am halfway across the country missing them.

I actually made this card for the Window of Hope challenge at Splitcoast Stampers, hosted by Kittie747. She said:
My challenge participation today is to honor my brother-in-law, Louis D'Agostino who lost his life to cancer on July 12, 2012 and to honor my sister, Cynthia who will love and miss him forever. 

My challenge for you is to create a card with a Window of Hope. You may use window die cuts, window stamps, pictures of windows, hand cut a window using your craft knife, sketching a window, painting a window. The sky is the limit. Using pink on your card would be a special bonus.

I totally failed to use pink. I don't know what the deal is but I am in blue mode! I considered adding some pink rhinestones or something but really liked how clean it looked so...no pink.

For some reason the lighting was really weird and the photo isn't as clear as I would like, but the box to MD Anderson Cancer Center is sealed, so this is what you get!

I started by making the window with a square punch and a ruler. Then I lightly traced the center right square to guide my stamping. I stamped the trunks in VersaMark and embossed them in white, because aspen bark is white. Then I stamped the leaves in SU Summer Sun (retired) and lastly I used my Fiskars stamp press to stamp over the yellow with VersaMark which I set with clear embossing powder. All that embossing made the leaves shiny, and the trees resisted the Tumbled Glass Distress Ink that I sponged on to make the sky.

See how shiny the leaves are?

I popped the window up on tiny foam dimensionals and stamped the sentiment in Broken China. 

It was another one of those cards that was simple but not easy. I have got to stop stamping on my card bases! It took three tries, but the first was because I forgot my plan to emboss the trunks in white :). I should have done the leaves first so the trunks would be behind them, but I couldn't get the spacing right. I might re-make this for my mom and try it that way.

Thanks for looking!