Altered Awkward Family Photo Chunkies

Even though this month's "Altered Awkward Family Photos" chunky theme was my brainchild, I admit that I too, had a difficult time deciding what I would do.  One night while playing with a tree stencil (see middle photo), the idea came to me.  I would create a Family Tree!

I used some 4x4's that I had previously made out of pages I had removed from a book to be altered.  These pages were created by tearing the pages down to 4x4 size and then glueing about 7-8 pages together.  This would be my chunky substrate.  I then took my tree stencil and Distress Ink pads (Vintage Photo) to create my tree, adding branches with various parts of the stencil, .

To give more dimension, I added tree branch die cuts that I had created from scrap papers.  The ones I chose to incorporate had the same color tones as the stenciled tree.  I did not have a proper sized leaf punch, so instead I used a small circle punch to cut out faces from the Awkward Family Photo Calendar pages that were the inspiration for this theme.  I then shaped the faces into more of a leaf shape by folding the circle punches in half and cutting into a crescent shape.  Fortunately, the borders of my calendar pages were green, so as not to waste them, I made leaves out of the green borders and added those to my "Family Tree."  Though unintentional, the crease down the center of the "leaves" made them appear more life-like and added even more dimension to my chunky pages!