A wedding gift for Ben and Emily

Not too long ago, I had the honor of attending the wedding of two lovely friends. After wracking my brain for ages, trying to decide what would be an appropriate gift for the 
newlyweds, I decided that something they could put up in their new home as well as remind them of the special day would be a good idea. Apologies in advance as almost all the photos are taken on my phone in bad lighting at night XD

I sketched up quite a few ideas and finally decided on a tree of life theme. I wanted something to signify their love growing and lasting forever. I was also dead set on having it in a three panel photo frame lol which sent me on quite a hunt through several shops over a few days trying to find something simple and elegant that wouldn't detract from the main work.

I drew up the image I had in mind and inked in the tree. Then I stapled it to the actual paper I was going to use and hand cut out the branches and body.

I've always loved papercraft and paper cutting and went through a phase of intense paper cutting which resulted in many many pieces being made and also the worsening of my arm condition lol. After that I decided that I had to cut down on the pressure my arms were put through and sadly limit myself to doing less paper cut work. Sad.

 

After the main body was cut out, i then proceeded to do the same for all the smaller branches as well.

Then I hand cut out all the other little bits. The leaves were a mix of three different shades of green (growth in spring) and the birds were because I got told doves mate for life. I know doves are white but I didn't want them to be the same colour as the border so I used a lovely purple instead.

Sticking them all down took a while and lots of sticky fingers lol. I also had to make sure that I stuck the right branches that linked back to the main tree.

Instead of hand cutting the letters this time, I thought it would be less strain on my arms and a lot neater to use precut ones instead. I found a lovely pack of letters and numbers that had several different fonts. I really liked the glittery black it came in, but since it was all different fonts, it meant that long words with repeating letters was no go. Good thing their names had no repeat letters lol and that the date was all different numbers. Phew. I also decided to add some leaves at the bottom to even out the whole thing.

Time to assemble it in the frame and hope that it looks okay!

Tah Dah!! The finished product in the frame!! Wooo!! Took me a couple of days but I'm glad with how it turned out. Wrapped and delivered and its with the newlyweds now and I hope they like it!
I really enjoyed making it and I kind of wish to make more lol. Next wedding maybe XD