Technique Tuesday #4 - Negative Die Cuts

Hello!

Dashing in with a Technique Tuesday and this one is super simple and something I've had a brief play with before.

Negative Die Cuts.

Now last week I mentioned getting more use out of your dies by using them to deboss, this is another way to really get more value from your dies. Not every die you have will work for this, you'll want something that has a reasonable amount of detail in the outline, but isn't too detailed on the inside as all that will just be lost. However, some detailed or filigree dies can also work well as negative die cuts even though you lose the interior detail, because they have a good shape anyway.

Basically you will want something with a clear outline where it's obvious from the outline what it is.

For this example I used a Christmas tree. Other good dies for Christmas cards like this might include snowflakes, stars, baubles, crackers, deer etc.

I used an old Magnolia die as this is actually the only Christmas tree die I own, hmm I guess I should correct that soon. But anyway it worked very well for this.  This was actually a super quick and easy card to put together. Normally I would have embossed the stars and sentiment, but I could not find my gold embossing powder, (a hint to tidy my craft space perhaps?), so I just went with some lovely metallic gold ink instead.

The paper is from a Lemoncraft Christmas pad but almost any seasonal, (and many non seasonal), patterned paper would work well with this I think.

The sentiment is from the Mama Elephant Jingle Greetings set, the ribbon is from The Ribbon Girl and the small chipboard stars are from Make it Crafty

I hand cut the panel of white card, but would probably use a stitched rectangle die next time.

This would be a great card for quickly batch producing for your Christmas needs, you can change up the papers, ribbon and sentiment to make them a little different.

That's all from me today, but I have a fair few Christmas cards to share before the 25th so I'll be back with you soon.

Square Snowflake Trio

Hello!

Whizzing in with a super quick share today.

Lately I've been making lots of quick and simple cards for Christmas and these super quick and easy cards were made with cardstock and design paper with the focal point being a chipboard snowflake, though you could achieve a similar effect by layering a die cut.
These are all made on a simple 4 x 4 card base.

For card 1 I heat embossed the snowflake with gold embossing powder and did the same with the sentiment on the little tag. I finished with a few SA pearls and a little bit of button twine.

For card 2 I changed the papers around for different ones from the same pad and sponged some blue ink on the snowflake and stamped the small sentiment in silver. I brushed some Wink of Stella on the snowflake to give it a little sparkle. Finally I added a few clear gems and a tiny bow of silver organza.

For my last card I used more papers from the pad, sponged some gold ink on my snowflake and stamped the sentiment with the same ink. I finished with a few golden pearls and a tiny ivory satin bow.

Here's the 3 cards together so that you can compare. Honestly these were very quick and you can ring the changes with different papers and inks very easily.

I'll be back tomorrow with another Technique Tuesday.

Cupcake Princess Violet - Upcycled

So....have you ever coloured up an image, put it on a card and then hated the card, or at least thought you could do better?

I really liked the way I'd coloured this little princess from Mo Manning, but I wasn't very satisfied with the card I'd originally put her on and, something I'd been under time pressure to complete. She's been sitting in my 'don't know what to do with' box for a while now.

But when I got these papers through in the post from The Ribbon Girl I spotted the pink and grey and I just knew they belonged with her.

So I carefully removed her from the original card I'd popped her on and made another different card to showcase her.

The papers are from a delicious pad from Lemoncraft called Heart Painted. I was so happy when I saw that Mary was going to be stocking this one because I'd admired it for a long time but it wasn't available anywhere in the UK that I could see.

I distressed my edges but didn't ink them this time and I used some chipboard corners underneath my bottom layer for interest. I painted these first with a little gesso so that they would coordinate better with my theme.

I added some cheescloth to soften things a little, popped my image on, mounted on a die cut circle and frame from some white card and matching paper and added some flowers and leaves. I sprayed the leaves quite heavily with some silver misting spray.

Finally I added a triple bow with a diamante heart which I coloured to match with some Copics, and added a few flat back gems coloured the same way/

I used the following products from The Ribbon Girl

Lemoncraft Painted Heart 6 x 6 Pad
Diamante Heart
Cheesecloth
Rose Leaves
20 mm Open Ivory Roses
10 mm Pale Pink Open Roses
Pink Hip Rose Buds
Beaded Cherries Pink
9 mm White Spot Organza Ribbon
5 mm Pink Crystals

 I like the way my re-vamped card turned out.

Hope you do too!