Technique – die cutting

Featuring die cutting

AAA Two Quarters with Favourite Colours Twist

Hi there!

It’s time for a new challenge at AAA Cards!  This fortnight we’d like you to create a CAS card using two quarters of your card. Lots of rules with this one:

  • there needs to be two distinct quarters on your CAS card
  • two quarters could be one half, but we’d like to see a space between the quarters if this is the layout you opt for
  • ideally we’d like to see all images and the sentiment confined to the two quarters, but we will allow a sentiment to straddle the two quarters or even a sentiment outside of the two quarters as long as it’s not too big or dominant
  • the rest of the card should be plain empty ‘white’ space without any pattern, texture or embossing

The optional twist is ‘favourite colours’.

I must confess, this is my least favourite challenge theme! I know DT members have to stick to the rules and I’ve really struggled with designs for this one. Luckily, I remembered that the last time we had this theme, there was some AMAZING inspiration in our gallery – I particularly loved the designs that Sent Sue and Darnell came up with. Many thanks to all of you for inspiring me with this challenge theme!

I chose the elegant Bali corner die by Memory Box for my take. At first I tried the design on a UK A6 card base but it looked like each die cut took up more than a quarter. So I tried it with a larger (7″x5″) base. It looked perfect! However, like Sue, I got out my ruler and calculator and got measuring. Turns out each die covers exactly one quarter of the card base! Amazing!

I used to say my favourite colour was purple but I don’t really have a favourite colour at the moment. I have lots of favourite colour combos but in the end I decided to keep the colouring very simple and just blended some wilted violet distress ink on the flowers.

To complete my card, I added a Clearly Besotted sentiment.

My team mates have come up with some beautiful cards which are on the AAA Cards challenge blog. We are also joined a previous challenge winner and one of my favourite cardmakers, Trina, who always comes up with the most beautiful cards. I’m guessing blue will make an appearance on her card!! You know, I still think Tim Holtz should have named his latest colour Trina Blue!

Hope you can play along with us!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

White Berry Wreath

Hi there everyone!

Today I’m playing along with this week’s Color Throwdown challenge where the colour combo is grey, kraft and white. This would have been perfect for another Christmas card, but I decided to go with a non-festive card this time!

For my card, I cut the beautiful Joy Crafts Circle of Berries die from kraft and coloured it with my white Prisma pencil. I then cut it twice from vellum and layered all three wreaths to my card base. I adhered the beautiful Pinpoint Butterfly Trio (Memory Box) and then an Avery Elle sentiment before adding LOADS of baby sequins to the card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Pink Hibiscus

Hi there everyone!

Next today I’m playing along with the gorgeous combo that is this week’s Color Throwdown challenge (pink, orange, green and yellow) using Penny Black products.

First of all, I stamped the Energized cling stamp (40-476) and lightly blended yellow ink around it. Next, I cut the Tropical Paradise dies (51-643) and coloured them using distress inks . Finally I added a sentiment from the Thinking of You set (30-825) and a few gems.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Vase Collection

Hi there!

First up today, I’m playing along with this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

First of all, I created an ink-blended background using distress inks. Then I used some of my favourite dies and stems from Simply Graphic, Stampin Up, Altenew and Miss P Loves. I was going to colour the images but decided I like the impact of the white against the inky background! The sentiment is by Poppystamps.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

LucieG Christmas in July 2021 Challenge

Hi everyone!

Once again, I LOVED devoting a whole month to Christmas cards, although I’m not quite over the emotional trauma of losing a tiny little pine cone stamp last week! I hate losing things and this was such a perfect pine cone from a now-retired set. I still hope it will surface somewhere unexpected. The upside is that my craft table is super clean and tidy!

Unlike the colouring challenge, where I’m keen to move on after 30 days, I’m definitely not ready to move on from making Christmas cards now! I’ll definitely be creating more Christmas cards on and off during August!

Like last year, I generally ‘shopped my stash’ to create my cards although I did buy a few new bits!!

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.

Christmas in July 2021 – Day 31

Happy Saturday everyone!

Welcome to Day 31 of Christmas in July 2021! Today I’m playing along with the challenge at CAS on Friday where the theme is tiny images.

I used a beautiful festive die set by Simply Graphic adhered to an ink-blended panel. You would not believe how long it took me to arrange those little images! Sometimes I’m too much of a perfectionist.

The sentiment is by Clearly Besotted.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.