Technique – die cutting

Featuring die cutting

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.

Vase for you

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today I’m playing along with this week’s Color Throwdown challenge  which has a fabulous neutral combo of black, grey, cream and kraft.

I decided to create another mini slimline card and started with creating a blended rectangle on my card base. I then cut a vase from the Marianne Designs Vase collection and three Simply Graphic stem dies from various coloured cardstock. After arranging the stems and vase, I adhered them to my card base and added a sentiment by Penny Black to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

MFT Card Design Superstar Contest 2021

Hello dear friends!

I’ve toyed with entering the My Favorite Things Card Design Superstar contest over the past couple of years, but either ran out of time, or felt my card design wasn’t good enough. Mainly the latter, to be honest. But this year, I decided to give it a go! As per the challenge rules, I just used MFT products. It should come as no surprise that I chose to enter the Clean & Simple category as that is my favourite style!

I knew I wanted to use one of my newer dies sets (Houseplants), but I also wanted to use a few different colour combos! For the first plant, I stuck with traditional snake plant colours… then I got more adventurous!

I love the spotty Begonia Maculata so I used that as my inspiration for the largest plant. For the next plant, I started off thinking of a Purple Shamrock, but decided that I wanted a plant with more red tones – like a coleus.

Finally I wanted to use my favourite plant die from this set to create an image inspired by the stunning Christmas Cactus. This required a little more work… and a very old die set! I cut the stems twice and coloured them. I then cut up one of the images and adhered the stems to sit behind the other (intact) die cut, creating 12 stems to play with! I added the six leaves from the die set and then pulled out the Wildflowers Centerpieces Dienamics set. It’s not in the MFT shop anymore, but Veronica used it in this challenge in 2015. Anyway, I coloured a few flowers and adhered them to the remaining stems.

I then created an ink-blended circle with the Circle Extraordinaire stencil on my card base and adhered my plants, placing a few of them on a couple of images cut from the Cat and Plant Perches Dienamics set.

To complete my card, I used a sentiment from a set that I managed to get hold of just last week (Itty Bitty Basics), positioned on a strip cut with the Skinny Strips Dienamics.

And so that, my friends, is the story of my entry, finished an hour before the deadline… yep, I’m up very late in the UK tonight!! My craft table is a complete mess – I think I used every ink blending tool I own (and I have a few)… but the tidying up will have to wait until tomorrow (or rather later this morning)!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

PS I wasn’t too sure if I needed to share the contest graphics, but here they are just in case!