Technique – die cutting

Featuring die cutting

Santa’s sleigh

Hi Everyone!

Today, I’m playing along with this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge where their 400th anniversary celebrations continue!

This week’s sketch was the one used for challenge number 200…. and it’s really minimalist! I decided to make another festive card, using a die I had forgotten – the Pine Tree Border from Poppystamps, dated 2011! Hard to believe that’s 8 years ago now! Anyway, I cut a panel of white card using the die and stamped a Clearly Besotted sentiment. I then masked off a circle on my card base and blended some distress inks to create a night sky. Maybe I should have gone a little darker, but let’s just imagine that the bright moon is making the sky seem blue, ok?!

I removed the masking paper and dabbed on a little watered-down distress ink to add some depth to the moon. I then stamped a Clearly Besotted Santa image over the moon. Finally I added my die-cut panel to my card base using some foam tape et voila, another Christmas card done! Yay!

Thank for stopping by!

LucieG.

Floral Stem Collage

 

Hi Everyone!

I’m playing along with the current sketch challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches. I decided to use a new-to-me die, the beautiful Floral Stem Collage from Poppystamps. As the flower bends into the right of the frame, I flipped the sketch and lined the die cut on the left side of my card!

I coloured the die cut with my Twinkling H2O paints before adhering it to a piece of Basic Grey paper. After adhering the die cut to my base card, I added a stamped sentiment from an older Hero Arts/Basic Grey collaboration set.

Thank for stopping by!

LucieG.

Fabulous Friend

Hi Everyone!

just a quick post today – I’m playing along with this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge and the deadline is looming!

I used Basic Grey papers and die from My Favorite Things and Simply Graphic to create my take on the sketch. The sentiment is by Sugar Pea Designs.

Thank for stopping by!

LucieG.

Color Throwdown Guest Designer Week 1

Hello everyone!

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to say that I have the honour of being the August Guest Designer over at one of my favourite challenges, the Color Throwdown. I’m so excited!

I have to say that this week’s fabulous colour palette of green, yellow, pink and lavender was a little challenging for me… It’s a beautiful palette with some amazing possibilities BUT I have a bit of a difficult time with lavender! Whenever I try to use it for a colour challenge, I always end up with a shade I feel is too purple or too pink!

So, for this week, I played it safe and used Milled Lavender distress ink!

I thought this palette would be perfect for a flowery card and decided to use a somewhat neglected background die that I bought last year (Daisy Mosaic by Creative Expressions) and one of my favourite techniques – inlaid die cutting. I started by creating four ink blended panels (in addition to Milled Lavender, I used Spun Sugar, Scattered Straw and Mowed Lawn). I then cut each of these panels using the background die. I also cut a piece of white card with the die.

I removed all the little pieces from the white die cut panel, adhered the negative to my card base and got to work inlaying all the little bits from the ink blended die cut panels. It’s time consuming but I think it’s totally worth it!

I had originally planned to add a green frame to the card, but as I was about to cut the frame, the green negative die cut panel fell onto my card base. I really liked the green outline and so I adhered the whole green negative panel on top of the inlaid background, effectively hiding all the white!

I added a Winnie & Walter die cut sentiment and a Penny Black butterfly to complete my card.

For full details of how to enter this week’s challenge, please head over to the Color Throwdown challenge blog. As usual, the design team has some amazing inspiration:

Amy Rohl

Amy Rysavy

Barbara Anders

Broni Holcombe

Jodi Collins

Lisa Henke

Lori Tecler

Lynn Put

Vickie Zimmer

Wanda Cullen

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Hello lovely whittle cat!

Hi Everyone!

Well its been quite the stressful weekend with various house/garden issues; the atmosphere has not been conducive to creating. But I finally managed to make a card against all the odds today!

I’m playing along with a new-to-me challenge, the Global Design Project, which has a CASE the designer challenge this week. I loved the rustic feel of the inspiration card by Janneke de Jong and the design was fabulous. I’m so glad that it helped me get down to creating!

I used the cute Whittle Cat die from Poppystamps plus a couple of butterfly dies from Simon Says Stamp and Memory Box. The sentiment is by Mama Elephant and the embossing folder is by Taylored Expressions.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

LucieG Christmas in July 2019 Challenge

Hi everyone!

My Christmas cardmaking always tends to be a bit of a rush, especially as I like to devote my crafty time to Tracey McNeeley’s tag challenge in November. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been trying to find a way to make cards earlier in the year, but generally failing! However, I think I’ve found a better way of achieving that this year!

Christmas in July!

I actually decided to attempt Christmas in July earlier this year but then Kathy Racoosin announced her Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge, which would fall partly into July and that threw my into a bit of a quandry… but that turned out to be an added bonus! I only used wood-mounted stamps for the colouring challenge, so I was able to ink up some oft-neglected wood-mounted Christmas stamps for my cards in the first half of the month!

I LOVED devoting a whole month to Christmas cards. While I was very ready to move on from stamping/colouring at the end of the 30 day colouring challenge on  15 July, I’m not ready to move on from making Christmas cards now! I think that’s because I didn’t restrict myself to one main technique (like stamping/colouring) and also because I have some really gorgeous festive supplies! Anyway, I’ll definitely be creating more Christmas cards on and off during August.

I also enjoyed being able to create my cards without the ‘distraction’ of new stuff! In autumn, I often end up waiting for new release stamps and dies to arrive and this adds to the pressure to get my cards done quickly! By creating so many cards in July, I was able to ‘shop my stash’ and use some old favourites as well as newer stamps and dies that I didn’t have a chance to create with last year.

It was also fun to create festive cards for challenges which were not focussed on Christmas-themed cards! I ended up with cards using non-traditional colours – some challenges really stretched my creativity!

Thanks to everyone who followed along and shared kind comments with me – I really appreciate all of you!

Have a great day!

LucieG.