die cutting

You’re Pawsome!

Hello once again. Cardz 4 Galz has started a new challenge. Caz is hosting this time, and she has chosen the theme of ‘Dogs or Puppies‘. Here is my card:

I used A Spellbinders embossing folder for the background white panel, matted with black, then added to a card base.

The dog house was created using a Spellbinders die set. This die set is to create a 3D dog house, but I just die cut the pieces I wanted for the front and roof, out of Lawn Fawn woodgrain card stock. The sentiment was added to the roof, and those pieces backed by white card to make the sentiment stand out a little more.

The dog is the Boston terrier, a die set from Simon says Stamp, and using darker card so he can stand out from the brown dog house more.

I hope you can come and join us with your dog or puppy creations. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Crafty Animals – anything goes with an animal

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – anything goes with a critter

A Perfect Time To Craft – anything goes

Ellibelle’s Corner – anything goes

The Crafty Addicts – anything goes

Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends – anything goes

Floral Hello

Hello to you all.

My friend and I have just spent a couple of days away doing a Christmas Book Nook and a Veranda Nook……we had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for – so much work and fine detail needed for those projects. It absolutely blew my mind – so I had to come back and make a card as I know how to do that…..! I don’t think that is something I’m going to be doing much of in the future – but I really enjoyed what we did do.

I have a card to share using a new stamp and die set from the recent Stamptember collaboration with Simon Says Stamp and Concord & 9th:

I stamped all the images in the stamp set, but decided to use only these couple of sprigs for a more clean look.

The background panel is a 3D embossing folder from Spellbinders, adhered with tape. I die cut these three sprigs after stamping the two layers for each colour.

The two stripes of blue are from a little packet I keep my strips in, and the circle was die cut and stamped with an sentiment from that same stamp set.

The stamp set has a large poinsettia flower and even though I stamped and die cut that – it is sitting on my desk for another project – I didn’t want to cover up too much of the embossing.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – green, orange, blue

Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge – anything goes

Allsorts – anything goes – option to add texture taken (3D embossing folder)

The Flower Challenge – anything goes with flowers

CYHTP – embossing folder – option of spooky not taken

Slimline Holly Christmas

The ABC Christmas Challenge has reached the letters ‘U‘ and ‘V‘. We want to see you Christmas/festive creations with the themes of ‘U for Use It Up’ and/or ‘V for Vertical‘. Here is my card:

Onto a black slimline card base I placed a piece of black glitter card, added a white frame, then a narrower black frame.

The holly was die cut from a piece of card created when playing with some techniques. I used a green mica spray and when that was dry, I stamped with a red rubber stamp and heat embossed in gold. You can see the detail of the gold heat embossing here:

I then used a slimline holly die from Sue Wilson, and arranged as you see – some hanging over the edge. That did take a while to adhere to the black glitter card, but I put something heavy on top and left it overnight.

I wanted a sentiment which would stand out from the background but not take over from the holly and the glitter background, so chose a gold foiled sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio.

I resisted adding even more bling with sequins as I think this card has enough shine and shimmer.

I hope you can come and join us with our Christmas/Festive projects following our themes. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Peace On Earth Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Love To Craft – anything goes

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Christmas Bingo – 3 items from one column – ‘B’ column – black/free/no stamping

Sparkles Forum Christmas Challenge – Christmas flowers/foliage

Sunflowers For A friend

Hello again. I have a card to share from a very messy play time:

I first created the background panel by using stencil and grit paste onto water-colour card, so I could set that aside and let it dry.

I then ink smooshed some brown and orange Distress Inks onto different Distress White Heavystock panels and set those aside to dry.

I then found a piece of yellow and green paper, created during a gel plate session using either water-colours or acrylic paint (I can’t remember which), so I used that panel to die cut the flowers, and layered with another white die cut piece of card to add some stability.

Once dry, I die cut the layers from Honey Bee Stamps ‘Lovely Layers Sunflower‘, placing my dies where I wanted to add to get some white areas, solid areas, and some splattering from the ink smooshing.

The brown centres were die cut from some grey ink smooshing, but they were too grey, so I added some ink blending with brown Distress Oxides.

The next thing to do was stick everything down – I had forgotten what to use to glue things down onto the grit paste. My normal wet glue didn’t work, and I couldn’t find my gel medium – I must have a few containers stored ‘safely’ somewhere – so I used glossy accents….that seemed to have done the trick.

I then added the foiled sentiment and some gold facetted gems, stuck down with a drop of glossy accents.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – stencil fun

FarmQuest Challenge – sunflowers

My Time To Craft – In The Garden

We Love 2 Create – anything goes mixed media

Ellibelle’s Corner – anything goes

Die Cut Divas – layered die cuts or layer die cuts

Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge – anything goes mixed media – use at least three mediums

Framed Snowflake

Hello. I have a card to share using a snowflake set from the recent Pinkfresh Studio Create and Connect event:

I created the background by stamping the snowflake image in Abandoned Coral Distress Oxide. The frame is from Pinkfresh Studio also, die cut in white, the inner portion die cut out, a layer of vellum also die cut with outer-most layer, glued to the back of the frame, and placed on top of the background.

I then stamped the snowflake in a light brown ink, left my snowflake where it was in the Misti, used all three layers of the stencils to colour it in, masking off portions so I had dark blue towards the middle, and light blue towards the outer portions. Those small blending brushes came in very handy for the itty bitty parts of the snowflakes.

I then placed the panel back into my Misti, and stamped with black ink.

The technique of stamping in a light colour, using the stencils, then stamping again in your darker colour, was learned from Pinkfresh events. It is a little anxiety provoking the first time you do it, and you have to ensure your card is placed into the corner both times of stamping – and you don’t remove the stamp, but I do like the darker outline when you stamp at the end.

I used the matching die for the snowflake, die cut another one to add to the back for a little more stability, then glued onto the card.

The sentiment is foiled and added with glue, then I added some gold sequins around the snowflake, and some dew drops to the four points and the centre.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – coral, light blue, navy blue

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – stencil fun

Addicted to Stamps and More – die cuts and/or stencils

Peace On earth Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Most Magical Time Of The Year – anything goes Christmas or Halloween

Snowy Shaker Card

Hello yet again. I was inspired to create a shaker card for the first time in ages:

My goodness – all that acetate on the front made this very difficult to photograph – I hope you can see the details….

The card base is a white dry embossed panel using a Simon Says Stamp embossing folder.

The shaker piece was created by die cutting the circle frame (Pinkfresh Studio) and finding some nesting circles which went underneath with no visibility outside of that circle – and die cut the circle frames underneath several times. I probably die cut them at least 7 times, as I didn’t want to use 3

I glued all those circle frames together, and stuck down onto the card base.

The sequins were added to the ‘well’, a circular frame die cut out of silver and placed behind the deco circle, so it would show through the holes in the frame, and then a piece of acetate added to the back of the deco circle, and stuck down.

I added some die cut silver glitter snowflakes, then the stamped and die cut sentiment – also layered several times.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Simon says Stamp Monday Challenge – add some texture (embossing folder)

CYHTP – embossing folder – option of bees/beehive not taken

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Mix It Up Challenge – anything goes – option to make your own background

A Perfect Time To Craft – anything goes

Die Cut Divas – layered die cuts or layer die cuts (shaker frame)

2 Sisters On The Blog – shaker card

Three Snowmen

Hello. ABC Christmas Challenge has reached the letters ‘S’ and ‘T’. Fabiola is hosting, and the themes are ‘S for Snowmen’ and/or ‘T for Three of a kind’. I used both the themes on my card:

For the background, I die cut the Lawn Fawn ‘Four Square Backdrop’ and then each of the four insert panels I ink blended with Distress Oxides. I then splattered with water, and also splattered with some silver shimmer acrylic paint and set aside to dry.

I stamped the images from Time For tea Designs, coloured them with Copics, and die cut with the matching dies.

Onto a white card base I adhered the frame with 3D foam, added the ink blended panels and the images, found a foiled sentiment to add to the fourth opening, and adhered some sequins for even more shimmer and shine.

I hope you can come and join us with your Christmas creations following one or both of our themes. xx

Christmas Penguins

The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge has started the new ‘anything goes Christmas’ challenge. Here is my card:

I used a slimline card base and die cut the Mama Elephant frame. The inner part was ink blended with Distress Oxides, and some glitter paste was added through a stencil and then out to one side to dry.

The penguin and igloo images from a Time 4 Tea Designs were stamped, coloured with Copics, then die cut with the matching dies.

I also created a silver glitter card strip using a stitched wavy die – and even though it wasn’t long enough for this card, I cut the strip first, then die cut twice to get the wavy stitching at the top.

The ink blended panel was now dry, so all the elements were added with either glue or 3D foam.

I hope you can come and join us with your Christmas/Festive creations. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Creative Fingers – anything goes

Shopping Our Stash – any wild animal

Crafty Animals – anything goes with an animal

Creative Artiste Mixed Media challenge – anything goes mixed media (Copics, ink, paste)

We Love 2 Create – anything goes mixed media (Copics, ink, paste)

Die Cut Divas – anything goes with die cuts

Thanks So Much…..

Hello I have a card to share using some Spellbinders products:

These floral dies were part of the products received when attending a virtual event with Bibi Cameron and Spellbinders. The layering florals are actually meant to be snowflakes – but I chose colours which are not necessarily meant for snowflakes and Christmas, to make a thank you card.

I die cut the outer layer with the shiny gold card stock, then used Concord & 9th green and cider for the florals – a lighter green for the stem, and a darker green for the leaves.

I also die cut another of the ‘snowflakes’ and layered behind the main one so you can see the itty bitty point showing in the gaps on the outside.

The background is a dry embossed panel using a Spellbinders embossing folder, matted with the darker green of the leaves – die cut using a Gina K designs Master Layouts die – so handy for those layers.

The sentiment strip is from a previous foiling session.

I’m so pleased with the versatility of this die set and how it turned out – not Christmas related at all. I like how the colours of the card stock and the gold go together, and the dry embossed panel adding some interest to the background.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

CYHTP – embossing folder – option of poppies not taken

Festive Friday Challenge – choose three items from the list (I chose four) – flowers, thank you, embossing folder, die cuts

Die Cut Divas – anything goes with die cuts

Mix It Up – anything goes option make your own background

Foiled and stencilled birthday

Hello there. I am Guest design Team Member at Dragonfly Dreams challenge for this coming month.

The theme for the challenge is ‘birthday‘. Here is my card:

The main floral images are from Pinkfresh Studio, stamped twice, then coloured using the matching layering stencils. I varied the colours on each layer of the stencils, not just sticking to one colour each layer, and used a liberal amount of masking/low tack tape to cover some areas up – I am quite a robust ink blender when it comes to stencils.

I gave a deeper pressure towards the centre of the flowers to try and give some dimension, then die cut with the matching die set.

The background is a hot foil plate – also from Pinkfresh Studio – and used as more of an interest in the background. Once this panel was adhered to the card base, I attached both of the floral images as you see with 3D foam, added a foiled sentiment strip, and some gold sequins dotted around.