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Those crazy barnyard babes are back!

Hot Tip Tuesday

There are countless cutting dies on the market featuring beautiful flourishes, tiny flowers and all manner of gorgeous lace-work that elevate our cards to the next level. The problem with intricate die cuts, aside from choosing amongst all the beautiful designs, is securing them to our projects.

Today's tip is to get your adhesive on your cardstock before you start cutting. Apply strips of double-sided tape or jac paper to the back of your cardstock, leaving the second backing strip in place while you run it through your machine. The dies should have no trouble cutting through the extra layer of adhesive. Once your shape is cut, simply remove the backing strip and secure the die cuts to your project. 

Blue Blossoms

Monochromatic colouring is a great way to practice adding shadows and highlights to add shape to an image. Not worrying about the true colours of objects and just sitting and using a favourite colour is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon... plus you can end up with some great results!

I stamped a selection of flowers from the Cherry Blossom set onto blending card and coloured them with alcohol markers. I wanted a monochromatic look and decided that a nice calming blue would be a lovely change.

I used the matching dies to cut out the various flowers and then built my card up in sections. Some of the flowers I adhered directly to the card base so they were flat, while others were built up with a layer or two of foam tape to vary the heights and give more depth to the image.

Stamps and Dies:

    

Day 4 - "D"

It's "D" for die cutting at my place today. I've used a large, nesting die set to create an easel card. The larges die cuts the card base, while smaller dies cut mats for images and sentiments.

YOUR TURN: Create a card using the letter "D" as your prompt.

Click on the link to upload a photo of your creation:

INSPIRATION WORDS:

December, decorations, Dasher, Dancer, Donder, Dutch-fold card, double diamond fold, diagonal tri-fold card, diamond glaze, die cutting, digital stamps, dimensional, dry embossing, distress ink, dark blue, deep red.

Stamps: Blessings of the Season

Let It Snow

For many years I've been intending to experiment with cutting felt or fabric with metal dies, and I'm happy to report that I have finally achieved my goal! These snowflakes are made from white felt, heavy thread, beads and kindy glitz. The thread is a couple of feet long so the snowflakes can be hung from the ceiling to make a beautiful snowy display.

This is how they looked pre-construction.

Scrap Card #15

The scraps that I used for this background don't have a lot of colour in them, so I decided to keep everything else quite neutral too.  Unfortunately the card ended up being a little more sombre than I'd anticipated.  It's probably better suited to a sympathy card than a celebration.

 

 

My New Year's Resolution

Scrap Card #4

Orange is not a colour I use regularly, so I was quite surprised to find so many off cuts in my scrap box.  I can't even remember what the original project was that generated so much extra paper, but it must have been pretty big!

 

Celebrate the Season

I really enjoyed creating these cards and will probably make a few more before the year comes to a close.

 

I started off by tearing some white cardstock and layering it at the bottom of the card to form snow drifts.  I used a dauber and some bright yellow ink to add the "lamp glow" directly on to the base cardstock.  At first it looked mottled and horrible but after a few minutes it dried beautiful and smooth.  Next was the stamped sentiment followed by the lamppost die cut, which was fixed to the card with double-sided foam tape to give it a bit of dimension.  I glued the ribbon bow and sprigs of pine to the lamp and finished by adding a few snowflakes with an opaque white pen.

Happy Christmas

Okay, this is the last poinsettia card for the year... I promise.

 

Day 29 - Die Cut Delirium

I dragged out all my Christmas themed dies and some white card stock and spent an hour cutting and embossing lots of wonderful Christmassy shapes.  Most of them didn't make it on to my card, but I'm certainly in the spirit of the season and have lots of left over cuts for even more cards!

 

YOUR TURN:  Go nuts with die cuts!
Upload your creation here.

Day 28 - Construct A Card

These days card makers have access to a wonderful range of pre-coloured images and card making kits.  Lots of patterned paper is made with images that are easy to cut out with scissors and reconstruct on a card.  There are also several companies who make and sell paper tole kits and pre-cut images for cards and scrapbooks.  I created this card using some pre-printed die cuts from Kaisercraft.  It was fun to mix and match the images to come up with this little Christmas scene. 

 

 

YOUR TURN: Create a card using pre-coloured cut outs, printables or purchased kits.

Upload your creation here.

Day 26 - What's Your Style?

Lots of card artists develop a creative "style" that can become quite recognisable.  They might be known for their colour combinations, their skill with colouring or their creative use of textiles.

Today I've created a card in the style of Kittie Caracciolo, who makes the most amazing cards using a wide variety of die cuts and inks.  After making this card I certainly have a new appreciation for all the hard work that Kittie does to create her masterpieces!

 

 

YOUR TURN: Create a card based on the style of a card artist you admire.

(You are not recreating a particular card they have done,

you are using their general style as inspiration.)

Upload your creation here.

Die Cut Tree

I made this simple card using some fabulous Impression Obsession dies that I purchased from the last craft show in Brisbane.  Thankfully the flower die cuts out 30 - 40 flowers at once so you don't have to crank them out one by one, which would cause some serious frustration!