Technique – die cutting

Featuring die cutting

Snowflakes all around

Hello Everyone!

So my Christmas cards are all written/sent, but that doesn’t mean my festive supplies are getting put away just yet! Here’s the card I made for this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge. The DT call is still ongoing, so I’m throwing my hat into the ring with this one as well and keeping my fingers crossed!

I used a great 3D embossing folder from Crafter’s Companions – Sparling Snowflake – to create my centre panel. I love how this folder embosses snowflakes with differing depths. Quite unique I think! I haven’t got any other folders like this! Some snowflakes are really raised but others are very subtle. So clever!

Anyway, I added the Alicia snowflake die cut by Simon Says Stamp and stamped a small sentiment from Clearly Besotted.

To finish off the card, I added a few Nuvo glitter drops.

I’m also entering this into the current Simon Says Stamp Flickr challenge where the theme is die cutting.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

O Christmas Tree

Hello everyone!

I seriously cannot believe how fast 2018 has flown by, can you? All my favourite challenges are starting to take their festive breaks, including the Color Throwdown challenge. The palette for their last challenge of the year is a classic Christmas combo – green, red, white and kraft.

I used a fabulous tree die from Simply Graphic and cut it several times in kraft and once in green glitter card and adhered all the die cuts to the kraft card base.

I added a red glitter die cut sentiment from Savvy Stamps and a small dot of Nuvo glitter drops to finish off the card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG

 

 

Tree Trio

Happy Sunday everyone!

It’s time for our last challenge of 2018 over at AAA Cards. The challenge will run until 5 January and the theme is ‘three of something’. Uniko is our sponsor.

I decided to make a quick CAS card with a couple of dies. I used a quirky tree die from Flora and Fauna to cut a remnant of a background I had created with some Color Bursts. I then added a sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp Words in a Line die set – one of my best buys from 2018!

I’m going to enter this in the current Simon Says Stamp Flickr challenge where the theme is die cutting.

My teammates have shared some gorgeous CAS cards on the AAA Cards blog and we are also joined by the talented Ishani from Quillish as our Guest Designer. She has a wonderful style – you must pay her a visit!

Thanks for stopping by – I do hope you play along with us!

LucieG.

 

 

Happy 1 Diecember!

Happy Saturday and Happy 1 Diecember everyone!

I’m very excited that my Simon Says Stamp Thanksgiving Day order arrived this morning and I immediately started playing with my new crafty items!

First up was the stunning Alicia Snowflake die. Isn’t it gorgeous. I have so many snowflake dies that I’ve tried to ban myself from buying them and use the ones I have instead. But I have seen this snowflake all over the place and eventually I caved!

I cut the snowflake from white glitter card. The word die is also from an older SSS die set (Happy Winter) and the embossed stamp is from a SSS sentiment set.

I’m entering this into the current SSS Flickr challenge (Christmas/Holiday) and the SSS Wednesday challenge (anything goes)

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Puffed up

Hi there!

I’m back with another Crafts-U-Love DT card.

Earlier this month I shared how I used the Studio Light stamp and die set to create a paper-pieced card. Today I’m using one of the dies from the set plus another item I received in my DT pack – the intriguingly-named ‘white fluffy stuff’ by Cosmic Shimmer.

It has been YEARS since I played with this sort of product. I recall buying something similar the first Christmas that I was crafting and used it on Santa beards! The Cosmic Shimmer version is very similar… but my style had changed and I was concerned that the Fluffy Stuff might be a little too…. heavy… for the countryside scene that I was originally planning to make as my second card using the Studio Light set.

In the end, I settled on a masked ink blended background to showcase the Fluffy Stuff. I used just one die from the set and cut it several times before masking off a section of my base card and then adding the trees on top.

I gently blended four shades of distress ink (Antique Linen, Victorian Velvet, Seedless Preserves and Dusty Concord) and then removed the masks to reveal my white trees! Then I die cut the Creative Expressions Merry Christmas die a few times from card, adhered the layers together and then onto my card. I planned to add a top layer cut from gold glitter card but as I would be using a heat tool for the Fluffy Stuff, I thought it may be safer to add the glitter layer after heating the Fluffy Stuff.

Once my sentiment was in place, I started to play with the Fluffy Stuff. I wanted to create smaller dots of snow, so I tested the dot size on a piece of spare card. A little goes a LONG way.

In the end, I added very small dots to my base card – I needed quite a steady hand as the Fluffy Stuff flows freely from the bottle and I didn’t want to apply too much by accident!

 

 

Then I got to work heating the Fluffy Stuff! Once this stuff gets hot it certainly puffs up – and actually puffs up a lot more than I expected! And that is where I made a mistake! I was convinced that the two small dots in the bottom left should puff a little more… so I went back to heat them a little more. Result = burnt Fluffy Stuff.

 

 

 

Well I guess this would be ok if I was creating an image of a Baked Alaska but this is not the look I was going for on this particular card!Luckily, once cool, the Fluffy Stuff comes off really easily! Phew!

 

 

 

 

Actually, I managed to knock off a couple of my fluffed up dots when I was adding the top layer of the sentiment. So to prevent this from happening when I added some shimmer to the trees, I positioned a couple of clear blocks on the card to ensure my hand was away from the paper.

In hindsight, I would use the Fluffy Stuff as my very last element to reduce the risk of losing some dots.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

Supply List

Here are the links to the products I used on my card. Products marked with an asterisk (*) were kindly sent to me to use.

Studio Light tree stamps and dies*

Cosmic Shimmer Fluffy Stuff*

Distress inks

Creative Expressions Merry Christmas die

Nuvo Aqua Shimmer Midas Touch

Day 26 – 25 Days of Christmas Tags 2018

Hi everyone!

I’m playing along with Tracey McNeely’s 25 Days of Christmas Tags event again this year.

Day 26 is a bonus day with A Jillian Vance Designs as sponsor. As usual, the designers had come up with some amazing inspiration and I was particularly taken by two tags using a deer head with glasses! So quirky! Now, unfortunately I don’t have any glasses dies, but I decided to create my own take on Rosemary Dennis’s tag.

I used an old Tim Holtz/Sizzix die that I have had for AGES, but rarely use nowadays as it’s one of those thick BIGZ dies and has been banished to the depths of a cupboard. So glad I came across it by chance on Saturday and that I can use it so quickly after!

I added glitter ornaments from my beloved Pretty Pink Posh Festive tree die set and adhered the whole image to a tag cut from Basic Grey. Ah, I still miss Basic Grey! Just as well I have a small mountain of it still!

I’ve loved this challenge even more this year! It’s been such fun stepping outside my comfort zone from time to time and using a variety of my festive supplies – old and new alike!

Thanks to Tracey and all the designers who made this such a fun event!

And thanks to you, of course, for stopping by!

LucieG.