Technique – die cutting

Featuring die cutting

A die for all seasons

Happy Saturday everyone!

Today I’m playing along with this week’s Color Throwdown challenge  which has a fabulous autumnal combo of orange, brown  and grey. I really liked the shade of orange in the inspiration photo and I used a blend of distress inks to get close to it!

Penny Black released ‘Making Spirits Bright’, their fabulous festive collection yesterday. There really is something for everyone in this massive collection – I am particularly delighted by all the dies. They are gorgeous! What’s more, so many of them can be used all year round. For my Color Throwdown card, I used Berry Sprig (51-719) and the branches from Nestled (51-722). The branches actually bend to the right rather than the left but I saw that Jill had used the reverse of the dies cut for a few of her cards in this release and I decided to do the same. I smoothed out the edges using a bone folder, and was very happy with the results! To complete my card, I added a sentiment from my current go-to autumnal set – Autumn is Calling (30-863).

Want to see the first card I made with Berry Sprig? Well, it’s a festive one – and here it is!

I paired this beautiful die with a sentiment from the Season to Believe set (30-868) and coloured it using a variety of watercolour paints, including my Twinkling H2Os.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Spooktacular Day

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today I’m playing along with this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

I had lots of ideas for this sketch and was about to create an autumnal card, when I suddenly decided that I wanted to use purple! So I pivoted to a Halloween card! It gave me a chance to use the little ghosts from my brand new Open House Boo die set from Spellbinders. I have more than enough ghosts already but I couldn’t resist! I added an ink blended circle, cut with an irregular circle die by Simply Graphic. The second circle is vellum embossed with a Carabelle Studio folder and then hand cut – I wanted to match the irregular die cut! The sentiment is from a new My Favorite Things set

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

AAA Challenge no. 200 – Let’s celebrate!

 

Hi there!

It’s time for a new challenge at AAA Cards – and we’re celebrating our 200th Game! 200 challenges! Isn’t that amazing! I love the card challenge community and I am particularly thankful to all the DTs and especially team administrators who make it all possible! Our lead admin, Jane, has been on this DT since the very first game; I’m not sure how long she’s been our admin, at least 5 years I think. So Jane, I dedicate this card to you!

My team mates have come up with some beautiful cards which are on the AAA Cards challenge blog. Head on over there to see what prizes we have on offer for this special challenge!

As part of the celebrations, I’m giving away a brand-new Penny Black cling stamp called ‘Fur and feathers’ (40-771). Please comment on this post if you would like a chance to win and I’ll draw a winner on 17 October. Please note the stamp doesn’t have its original branded packaging but I haven’t used it at all! Giveaway open to UK commenters only…. sorry internationals, but overseas postage still seems unreliable.

 

 

 

Now, on to the details of my card…. I was originally going to go for a balloon-based card, but as I was looking through my dies, I spotted this fun ‘Party Crowd’ die by Die-versions which I knew it would be great for this card.

This card came together very quickly – I simply blended some distress ink on my card base, adhered the die cut and then added a Tonic die cut sentiment cut from holographic paper (so difficult to photograph!) and a few little stars!

 

 

Hope you can play along with us!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Leafy Blessings

Happy World Cardmaking Day everyone!

And it’s also ‘Originals Only’ day over on Instagram – a day when we show our support for all the wonderful designers who are constantly coming up with wonderful products for us all!

So here’s the card I created to thank just a few of the many companies who continue to inspire me.

I used dies by:

Memory Box (Jasper Leaves)

My Favorite Things (Birds of a Feather set)

Poppystamps (Whittle Oak Leaf)

Simon Says Stamp (Eucalyptus Leaves)

Stampin Up! (Boho Indigo die set)

Simply Graphic (Feuilles geometriques)

Creative Expressions (Elegant Arrangements)

Penny Black (Leaflets)

Hero Arts (sentiment)

I used the theme from the Global Design Project which is ‘leaves’.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Autumn Tree Triptych

Happy Friyay!

Today I’m playing along with the current sketch challenge over at The Paper Players .

I used four of my older die sets to create my take on the sketch – Leaf Canopy and Perfect Pumpkins by Memory Box and the Tree Triptych and Gourds and Pumpkins set from Poppystamps. The oldest is from 2011 and the most recent is 2016! I love how timeless these designs are! The sentiment is by Hero Arts.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Halloween |Hello

Happy Monday everyone!

Today I’m playing along with this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

It took me ages to work out a design I felt happy with! In the end, I chose a favourite Halloween set – Fab-boo-lous Friends by My Favourite Things. I paired it with a fence dienamics die and a sentiment from a new MFT sentiment set.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.