All About the Die Cuts

When you need a card in a hurry die cuts can be invaluable.

 

I started with a Pretty Quick die called straight panel which cuts a complete A6 panel. I cut the panel in white card and then blended fossilised amber DO over it. It would have been even faster if I had cut the panel from coloured card. This was mounted on a white card blank. I die cut the sentiment and the butterfly from white card and added them. Job done!

Monthly Tag Challenge - July

This month's tag had the fun theme of fashion with a requirement for some embossing. I kept thinking of the David Bowie song ('Fashion, turn to the left, fashion, turn to the right') and once the earworm embedded itself  only another song could replace it so I turned to Madonna ('Vogue, strike a pose'). This Dina Wakley stamp from her essential silhouettes collection fitted the bill.

I stamped it several times with my stamping platform and Versafine onyx black to get a crisp image, clear heat embossed it and then masked it. The background is a TH stencil in spiced marmalade, crackling campfire and candied apple DOs. It looked a little plain after removing the mask so I added some splatters of red acrylic paint, die cut some stars of various sizes from metallic card and added a heat embossed sentiment.

Monthly Tag Challenge - June

 Playing catch-up with the monthly tag challenge. June's theme was Celebrations with a requirement for some red, white and blue. 

The dies were mainly by Crafters Companion from various sets. I die cut the word and inlaid it into the tag. The confetti and balloon strings were also by Crafters Companion. The cake and stand are a very old Cuttlebug die (coloured yellow as a nod to the lemon jubilee pudding).

Layered Stencil Birthday

 Another card using the hexagon layered stencils. This stencil is designed for square cards but my default card size is A6 so I'm left with a white border both sides to which I've added some thin strips of matching card. The colours used are Distress Oxide fossilized amber, twisted citron and wilted violet. The sentiment die is from Alina Crafts. I cut it twice from white and once from purple card, stacked the 2 white and offset the purple slightly on top. It helped make the sentiment stand out from the bold background.

Bright Daisies

 This is the Woodware stamp I bought at the Sandown Craft Show recently. I just wanted to stamp it out and see what it was like so I added some colouring with alcohol markers and some Glossy Accents to the centres. I managed to stick my finger into the central daisy before the Glossy Accents had dried so I stamped and cut another one out to add over the top.

Layering Stencils - 2

 The second of my Nellie's Choice layering stencils is a floral one. I used DIs in evergreen bough, cracked pistachio and lucky clover for the 3 layers. These die cut flowers were sitting on my desk. I had coloured them with alcohol markers some time ago for a project which is only half-finished but they seemed to go well with the background. I added a silver embossed sentiment strip and mounted it on an A6 card blank.

Layering Stencils

 After over 2 years I finally made it to a Craft Show! How wonderful it was to see everything and be able to touch it instead of on a screen. Evidently there were many people who felt the same as I did because the show was packed. I had decided to leave it until the afternoon to visit when it tends to be quieter but it was very busy for the first half hour or so.

I was very mindful of what I bought - some white card from my usual supplier Lime Tree Crafts, some white and silver Nuvo Drops, a Woodware flower stamp that I've seen Natasha Foote use and 2 sets of background layering stencils. Of course I had to try out the stencils straight away and made a quick card with the Honeycomb set.

I used Distress Oxides in spiced marmalade, crackling campfire and candied apple and added some gold peel-off strips to the left and right. The sentiment is gold embossed from a sentiment stamp and die set and I mounted it on foam tape. That's it really!