Beautiful

A quick post this morning before I go off to craft group - this is mostly made from scraps of card, apart from the base card and background paper .  The image was coloured using alcohol pens and die cut into an oval which fits the larger de-bossed oval.  The diagonal border and the little floral spray were cut from Centura pearl card and finally the sentiment was a printed one on punched shapes.

Image - Beautiful You Stampin' Up
Ovals - dies from Sue Wilson Austrian collection
Floral Spray - Sue Wilson die
Diagonal Border - also a Sue Wilson die set
Sentiment - computer printed, punches from Stampin' Up

3D Embossing

I love the 3D embossing folders and there are numerous ways to use them for different effects.  Today I've made a background by sprinkling Pixie Powders onto watercolour paper before embossing.  I'd made a piece large enough to stamp and die cut some flowers too and there is still a reasonably sized piece left for another project (and a few spare flowers).  The embossed panel was cut down to fit a square card and some frames were cut to fit using card the same colour as the stamped detail on the flowers; I also used some pearly gilding polish to enhance the embossed design.  The sentiment has been popped onto a layered die cut and flowers and leaves added just in the corners because I really didn't want to cover up too much of the beautiful embossing.  One of the advantages, or drawbacks depending how you look at it, is that when cutting frames you are left with lots of 'waste' from the centres so I think I must apply my mind to deciding what I can do with a pile of miscellaneous squares.

Frame and flower detail - rich razzleberry card and ink from Stampin' Up.
Frame - Sue Wilson Noble Pierced squares dies
Embossing Folder - English Rose 3D by Crafter's Companion
Sentiment - computer generated and punched oval Stampin' Up
Sentiment Plaque - dies from Sue Wilson Greek Islands collection
Flowers - Shaded Peony stamps and matching dies, Sue Wilson
Pixie Powders and Gilding Polish - Cosmic Shimmer

Racing By...

Well I'm afraid my resolution to stay away from the newsagent shelves has wavered somewhat when I spotted this set of dies and stamps which I just couldn't resist.  Originally I'd thought that maybe these 'freebies' would be of lesser quality than dies you could buy but this isn't the case because they always seem to cut really well - this set is no exception and I can see there will be lots of ways to use them.  I've incorporated a die which I already had to cut the hill and houses, the 'grass' layer was a piece of waste from cutting a border for another project and the main part of the scene has used just some of the dies and stamps in this current free set.  Oh, and the picket fence was another free die from a previous magazine give away.  I had fun cutting out all the pieces and assembling them into a cheery scene and of course all of the pieces apart from the base card are from my bits boxes.

Houses on Hill - from Christmas die set by Crafter's Companion
Picket Fence - free die from recent magazine
Car, Trees etc - all using dies from Enjoy the Journey set free with Die-cutting Essentials
Stamps - detail on tree and sentiment etc - from same set of dies/stamps

Home Decor for the Playground

It's time for the fortnightly challenge in the Playground and I thoroughly recommend a visit to see the great card made by Di with some oh so cute little elephants. This time I've made a home decor project using some of  my snippets - mostly tiny ones though so I still have loads left!!  This is a deep box frame with a 6" aperture and the two large squares are 'waste' from previously cut square pierced frames.  Two narrow strip snippets were used as a 'perch' on which the peacock sits but it is the bird himself which has the large number of tiny snippets used for the tail feathers and wings - even the body was cut from a larger piece in the blue snippets box - and yes I do have them colour-coded!! I was so pleased that I have a small die cutting machine because it would have seemed a bit silly cutting those tiny tail feathers on an A4 model!! I added a simple quote - more snippets of white and blue card and there it is - a piece of home decor for a change. I dithered about painting the frame but decided in the end to leave it 'as is', at least for the time being.  Apologies for the quality of the photo but the light wasn't too good yesterday afternoon.

Peacock die - Sizzix designed by Pete Hughes
Perch - embossed with a decorative strip die by Tonic
Words - from a Sheena Douglass stamp set (Indian tiger etc)
Plaque - Sue Wilson dies from Caribbean series
Squares - Sue Wilson Noble Pierced squares dies

Use at Least Two Dies

This is the challenge offered to us on the Allsorts Challenge blog where there are some great inspiration ideas from the Design Team.  I do love die cutting and most of my cards feature the technique one way and another - there were twelve different used dies on this one which I can show now as my friend will have seen her card by now.  I cut the apricot layer (1 die); outer pierced frame (2); the plaque for the greeting (3); the leafy spray (1); the flowers (3) and the numbers (2).  The area behind the frame was a piece of card coloured using Pixie Powders and then put through an embossing folder. The flowers were stamped onto some of the Pixie Powder card before being die cut.

 The sentiment and the apricot flowers were actually punched so they don't count!  Details are given below of the items used

Oops!! senior moment - just realised the picture was taken before I added the age numbers in bottom RH corner within the frame.

Frame - Noble Pierced squares dies Sue Wilson
Plaque - Sue Wilson Caribbean series dies
Leafy Spray - Sue Wilson Daisy corner die
Flowers - free stamp and die set given with magazine
Numbers - Crafter's Companion dies

Vintage Locomotive

For this card I've used another of my 'transformed' background papers - garish colours painted with a thin coat of gesso to tone them down and over stamped with various textures.  looking through my stamp collection I came across this image and as it reminded me of a blueprint drawing I stamped  with blue ink and clear embossed.  Two more stamps from the set were used in the same way before cutting out with scissors to add to the layout along with a label birthday greeting.

Stamps - from vintage sets by Creative Expressions
Sentiment - Tim Holtz stamps
Stamps used on  background - also from Creative Expressions

Partial Die Cutting

In the current issue of Quick Cards Made Easy there is an article on double partial die cutting by Jules of Always With a Heart.  I've seen partial die cutting but the double bit seems to be a step up from what we are used to and the article gives very clear instructions, well illustrated with examples.  I thought I'd like to try this and have been thinking over what dies I have which might work and I've come up with something and I will attempt to describe the steps which I must say took quite a bit of thought to get it all to 'happen' in the right order. WARNING - this is turning into a long post!!

Started with a piece of cream card 5 1/2" square and drew a light pencil line where I wanted the picket fence to be, ran it through the die cutting machine with the part I didn't want to cut 'hanging over the edge of the cutting plates (Jules describes this so well in her tutorial).

The next stage was to do the same thing with a circle die to make a frame around the fence, cutting carefully along the pencil line between the edges of the circle and the bottom of the fence.  So far so good but I'd not really decided what was coming next except that I thought a 'scene' behind the aperture would be good so I brushed some blue and green ink for sky and ground, then stamped some grass onto a piece of white card.

This all looked a bit bare so a tree and foliage were stamped onto the background and a line of stamped flowers which actually don't show much now the card is complete - heigh ho!!

Having popped the scene behind the window I set about making a bit of foreground by partial die cutting a smaller picket fence on the top of a strip of kraft card; also die cut a strip of foliage with flowers and a tree which I've turned into a shrub.  Two die cut black cats more or less dealt with the scene and foreground.  I then cut a fancy border in cream card, adding a printed sentiment. Some tiny pink flowers were added - these are the 'waste' from a border punch (always have to save these so it is good to use a few).

I hope you are still with me - details of items used are at the bottom

Circle Die - Spellbinders
Cream picket Fence - freebie die given away with recent magazine
Tree and Foliage in background - Sheltering Tree stamps from Stampin' Up
Row of Die Cut Flowers - die from Sizzix
'Shrub' - Tree die from Sizzix
Kraft picket Fence - die from Sizzix
Cats - Impression Obsession dies
Lacy Border - die from a set bought in The Works (they have an interesting range at good prices)
Sentiment - computer generated on Stampin' Up punched shapes
Tiny Pink Flowers - waste from a border punch