Scandinavian Christmas Tree Scratchboard

Well...I know I said I wasn't going to do any Christmas crafts until I knew if we're moving or not...but I've actually been "secretly" working on this one for a few days, figuring it'd be easy to pack and it won't make a mess around the house while I'm working on it. So, here's the first of this year's handmade Christmas decorations. A Scandinavian Christmas Tree done on a scratch board. 

While I was perusing through (where else?) Pinterest, I saw this chalk tree that Hazel drew on her chalkboard wall and I instantly fell in love with it. 

http://www.aleggup.com/2011/11/our-tree-is-up.html

I went through a few ideas of how I wanted to do my tree and finally decided that scratchboard was perfect for the look I wanted. Luckily I already had a few boards and the little scratching tool in my craft drawers. I took Hazel's photo, cropped and stretched it to be just the tree, converted it to pure black and white (no grays), and printed it off. I colored the back of the paper with my woodless pencil (seriously, I love this thing...pure graphite), layed it graphite side down on the scratchboard, and drew on the design. From there it just took a few days of scratching the design in how I wanted it. It was fun to try and figure out how to put the various textures in so it wasn't just plain black and white. I've got all sorts of ideas for colored versions and for other trees like this now too and I'm dying to get working on those now.