I completely missed adding to my May Review that we pruned back this oak tree in our yard. So, I decided to make a two-page spread about its history since 1995. I thought about not posting it, but what the heck, might as well share since I worked on it for two days.

The tree by the shop, our car-washing shade all these years, has had a traumatic life. Sadly, it might soon be time to say so long. It was always an unremarkable tree. One of the smaller oak trees in our yard and not particularly photo worthy. It’s the one left of ‘1995’. Then in 2005 it was struck by lightning with a very unlucky squirrel caught in there. It survived the 2007 Ice Storm better than most of the other trees in the yard. By 2013 it was thriving, and we thought it might be OK for a while longer. By 2016 the split caused by the lightning was growing, so we put a chain around it to hold it together. The tree did as well as could be expected despite the chain constricting its growth. We attempted to remove the chain in 2021, but it had already grown into the bark, and it probably would have split in two, so Chris helped trim it up a little. By 2023, Ron was worried a storm might take it out along with his shop. So, we (Chris) pruned it significantly. FYI, Chris standing in the tractor bucket with the chainsaw is 100% OSHA approved ;]. We do it all the time. Coincidentally, exactly 4 weeks after pruning, Oklahoma had 80-100 mph hurricane-force winds on Father’s Day. Thousands of trees from Tulsa to E. Okla. were uprooted or broken in half, but not this one.

I started with the template pages, flipping them to opposite sides since I had used them previously. The stains in the middle were cut off, so I filled them in on both pages with Artsy Stains. I simply clipped my photos to all the masks, removing some frames and labels and placed Evenfall paper below for the foundation. For the custom title I used Bountiful WordART Mix 1 ‘THE’ and created the custom word ‘DIE’ from other words in the Mix. The ‘T’ was AI generated with Bing Creator. The font for the other words is Euphorigenic. Layers Styles with Bevel/Emboss, Stroke and Drop Shadow were added. I placed the word transfer below the title layers and Urban Stitchez 1-10 above the title layers. I added the Dates and elements and moved the urban threadz from the template to the right-side page.