Technique – die cutting

Featuring die cutting

Basket of flowers

Hi there everyone!!

I’ve been taking a break from card challenges recently but when I saw that one of my favourite challenges, Freshly Made Sketches was celebrating a major milestone, I had to play along. This week’s challenge is number 700 meaning that the weekly challenge has been running for 14 years! 14 years!! Isn’t that amazing?! I’m really grateful to the team who always work so hard each week – coming up with amazing inspiration and leaving kind and uplifting comments. Thank you so much – I know being a challenge DT member is quite a commitment and I really appreciate all you do.

The challenge this week uses sketch number 14 and each DT member shared when they first started playing along with the challenge. I got curious and I think I started back in November 2016 for challenge number 261 – I didn’t have a blog back then but shared on Instagram only.

For my card, I used the gorgeous Into The Blooms – Above Ground die set by Papertrey Ink. This beautiful set was just released last month, and I just had to buy it from the US as I haven’t found a UK retailer for Papertrey. I love that basket and all the little elements… although I think some of those tiny dies may end up on the AWOL list before too long! I coloured the images with various inks and then arranged them on a card base that I had covered with four squares from the Dotted Postage Squares die set by Pinkfresh Studio.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG

LucieG Christmas in July 2025 Challenge

Hi everyone!

And that’s a wrap on Christmas in July 2025! Once again, I really enjoyed devoting a whole month to Christmas cards!

One of the aims I set myself was to create cards that weren’t too thick for standard mail and I have just spent the last 15 minutes checking each card! I created 36 cards this month and all bar 5 of them sailed through the 5mm slot in my mailing size guide ruler! Yay! I started to find it quite restricting to create thinner cards and I eased up on that part of my challenge as the month wore on so this result was a pleasant surprise!

I also enjoyed making a few twofers. In the past I’ve stamped/die cut lots of images (mainly trees!) and thought I’d use them at a later date, but I never did… so creating twofers was a good way of avoiding that!

It was so much fun to use the products that I bought in post-Christmas sales and also to dust off my older products. Playing with those 10+ year old stamps and dies brought back so many happy memories!

Many 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 2025 – Bonus Day

Hi there!

I can’t believe it’s the first day of August and Christmas in July is over! But it is Festive Friday so that calls for a bonus Christmas in July card I think!

When I was thinking about this card, I felt I HAD to use the Hero Arts Tree Pattern cover die again – I used it for this card on Day 9.

This time I cut it from some Craft Consortium paper and chose five of the trees. I adhered them to a panel that I had embossed with my favourite Sizzix tree folder and added a few stars and a Mama Elephant card to complete my CAS card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Christmas in July 2025 – Day 31

Hi there!

It’s difficult to believe but today is Day 31 of LucieG’s Christmas in July 2025! 31 days of cardmaking! I did it (again)! Yay!

Today I pulled out the older Simon Says Stamp Corbel Tree die and some purple ink and got cutting and blending. It didn’t actually take me too long to blend each of the petals, but rather than colour the little dots, I used dots cut from glitter card.

I adhered the tree to a background that I had embossed with Simon’s Sprinkle Snowglobe folder. Then came the nerve wracking part – stamping the sentiment! I deliberately chose a small one so that I didn’t need to curve it to align with the snowglobe base, which I always find difficult.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Christmas in July 2025 – Day 29

Hi there!

It’s Day 29 of LucieG’s Christmas in July 2025 and I have another Twofer today!

Memory Box’s Winterland Tree die from 2011 take centre stage today. This is a rare die for me because it has a background die – which I just discovered was released two years later…. craft moved slower back then with far fewer releases each year. I wish I had background dies for other delicate Memory Box trees!

I created an ombre ink blended panel and cut the tree from that and a piece of glitter card. I adhered the tree outlines to two background die cuts and then inlaid the die cut pieces.

I paired the ombre tree with Memory Box’s Pinpoint Burst plate and a fabulous Hero Arts sentiment wood-mounted stamp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I added the glitter version of the tree to an older Spellbinders folder and adhered a few pearls and a glittery sentiment to complete the card.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, which version do you prefer?

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Christmas in July 2025 – Day 28

Hi there!

It’s Day 28 of LucieG’s Christmas in July 2025!

While my plan this month was to craft for the joy of it rather than entering challenges, when I saw the Freshly Made Sketches challenge this week, I had an idea….

I tend to put my own spin on their sketches, which probably isn’t allowed (although the team have always been very kind to me and it has been one of my favourite challenges) and so I had debated not entering this but in the end I decided to give it a go.

As you can see, my own spin this time is to use a snowflake instead of the rectangle shape on the background strip. The dies I used are by Tim Holtz/Sizzix, My Favorite Things, Reverse Confetti and Spellbinders. So many companies on one little CAS card!

The sentiment is from a Clearly Besotted set.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.