Summer Holiday Cards

Hi Guys it's Design Team member Natalie here and I'm going to show you how to make this cute summer unicorn card.

 

 

We are going to start by cutting out the base rectangle using the crazy stitched frame dies, next I took out the die again and drew round the inside of the frame. Using these lines I took my ruler and craft knife and cut out the rectangle in the middle. We are going to use this inner rectangle to create our scene. Using the small wave die from the Ocean Borders Die set we are going to cut out two sets of waves the top one around 1/3 of the way down and the second one just a little lower. Putting these aside we are going to cut a sun out from the top portion using the small circle from the Stitched In Circle Dies.

You should end up with something that looks like this...

 

Then its time to colour in our background using oxide inks I used salty ocean for the waves. I inked them up separately so I could leave the top of the waves white this will add definition between the two and will give the impression of sea foam. The sun was inked with carved pumpkin and the sun rays with squeezed lemonade alongside the Bright Horizons Stencil. You just have line your stencil as shown and for the other side flip your stencil over.

 

 

That fabulous Unicorn is part of the Summer Vibin Stamp set I used the same colours I used in the background and added some pink and green to the mix. The citrus colours make for a great summer card.

Now that everything is coloured up its time to stick it all together including putting it back into the frame. I made sure to add double tape to all the cuts so they were nice and secure. Then stuck it onto a base card. 

The last few things to add were the sentiment which I inked in black and highlighted with a white gel pen. The last touch to add was a bit of Wink of Stella to add some shimmer and sparkle I added it to the unicorns mane and tail and to the whites of the waves. I hope you like my card and I can't wait to see your Summer Holiday Cards!

 

 

 

 

 

Crazy Stitched Frame Dies

Salty Ocean Oxide Inks

Carved Pumpkin

Squeezed Lemonade Oxide Ink

Bright Horizons Stencil

Ocean Border Dies

 

Stitched In Circle Dies

 

 

Summer Vibin

 

Old Favourites

Hi Divas its Natalie on the blog today and I'm going to showcase an old favourite stamp set today. I chose the Spare Parts stamp set to create this fun anniversary card.

I started by cutting out the base layer using the crazy stitched rectangle dies and on another sheet of card I created a stencil for the heart using the Nested Heart dies.

Take out the heart frame and save we are going to use that to frame the heart later on. Then place the stencil over the base card in the centre. I used the worn lipstick and abandoned coral oxide inks to ink up the heart and then spritzed with water to create a distressed look then I added the frame to finish off the heart.

I added the I'm Nuts and Bolts about you sentiment using the misti to make sure i got a crisp black.  I coloured up the robots using a simple colour scheme then went over their eyes with a copic liner and added white dots with a gel pen.

I fussy cut and stuck them onto the heart using foam tape to make them stand out.  Then finished up with a few nuvo drops to finish the card off.

Worn Lipstick

Spare Parts

Abandoned Coral

Nested Hearts

Crazy Stitched Frames

Same card three different looks!

Hi guys it’s Natalie on the CDD blog today and today I’m going to to create a card using dies to make a background. I love succulents and the four cacti dies at cdd are the perfect size to create a background. Originally I was just going to do an inlaid die cutting technique which is the card in the forefront of the image but then I couldn't resist mixing it up a little with the back two.

To begin with I cut out four base cards using the crazy stitched frame dies three with normal cardstock and one with Bristol smooth. Then we are going to cut out the cacti I tried to make the pattern random but so the same die didn’t end up next to each other. The dies I used are the three cacti from the South West Border Dies and the cactus die.

Make sure you save all of your pieces we are going to do an I lay die cutting technique on two of the cards the other one you can take out the pieces and save them for another occasion.
The first card I coloured in the cacti with copic markers taking them out first I find it easier to colour them you don’t get colour where you don’t want it!

The second card I mounted the whole card with the die cuts in onto black card and then used a watercolour technique with distress inks over the die cuts but in a loose technique so it looked messy.

The last card I took out the die cuts and discarded them for a future project then took the Bristol smooth cardstock we cut and water coloured the background with the same green distress inks we used on the previous background. I added foam tape to the back of the card we die cut and mounted it on top of the water coloured piece. Then mounted this onto black cardstock.

After colouring our cacti backgrounds its time to add the sentiment and finishing touches. I cut out nine happy die cuts so that we could layer them on top of each other so we would have three layers of three. Then I white heat embossed the word birthday from the Wishful Thoughts stamp set onto some black cardstock and cut it so that it was a thin strip. Then finished off with some black nuvo drops.
That’s my three cards for today using the same die cut background to make three different cards I hope you like it!



Happy Die

Cactus Die

Wishful Thoughts

South West Border Die

Nuvo Crystal Drops Ebony Black

Crazy Stitched Frame Dies

Creating scenes with Dies

Hi guys its Natalie on the blog today and I want to show you how to create a scene card using your dies as stencils. They are perfect if you would like to create a one layered scene card but are nervous about drawing in the details yourself. I chose to create a garden scene with the Somebunny Stamp set and to create my background I used the Rainbow Die, Outdoor Landscape 2 Dies snd the Garden Border Dies.

I started by making the base of my card using the Inside Scalloped Rectangle Dies once cut take out the middle part from the frame as we don't want the frame to get ink on it and place the frame to one side. Taking the middle part its time to lay out our scene I cut out the garden border for the soil and the little picket fence from the Outdoor Landscape 2 Dies from some scrap paper so  I could lay them out with the clear stamps of the bunny and carrot house to make sure I have things in the right positions.

Once you have everything in the right place then its time to draw  around everything ready to colour in. Try to lightly draw the images in so that they are easier to rub out later on.. Now its time to stamp out the bunny and carrot house I decided to try out some no line colouring so I used the antique linen distress ink to stamp these out as its a light neutral colour. The last thing to add to the scene is some clouds you just need to cut out one cloud and then you can move it around a place a few randomly in the sky.

Then its time to colour up the image I used some warm greys for the picket fence, clouds and bunny making sure the ears are darker than the cloud to distinguish between the two. I used the same oranges on the carrot house and the carrots and again using the same greens on the carrot tops and bow tie. Then a few shades of blue for the sky and brown for the soil. I like to keep my colour pallet limited so that you focus on the image and your eyes aren't distracted by all the colours. Try and avoid colouring over the pencil lines so either draw up to them or rub them out lightly first as once the marker is over the pencil you wont be able to rub it out.
Once I was happy with the colouring it was time to stick the frame back together and place it on some warm grey cardstock. the trick I use to easily stick the frame and base together is just placing them together upside down and then running the tape runner along the joins this enables us to easily stick it to the grey cardstock. Then its just time to stick it to your card base and its all finished up! I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial today and I look forward to seeing all your one layer scene cards!






Rainbow Die

Outdoor Landscape Dies 2

Somebunny

Inside Scalloped Rectangle Die

Garden Border Dies

Stamping wth Dies Tutorial

Hi guys its design team member Natalie on the blog today to show you how to create this fun card by making stamps from your dies. Its such an easy technique all you need is a bit of fun foam, its also  a great way to stretch your dies.

I started out by cutting out a sheet of white card using the crazy stitched frame dies this will become our base card. Turning the card landscape I laid out  the stitched alphabet dies to spell the word love and ran them through the die cutting machine. Cutting this out first will enable us to see where to place the heart stamps. I then used post it tape to temporarily stick the word love back together with the background card.
Next I began  to create my stamps I choose two different heart dies the heart of hearts die and the 3 hearts from the inside scalloped octagon dies. To make the stamp just take the white fun foam and you literally just run the dies through your die cutting machine like normal, the fun foam cuts beautifully even with delicate dies. I then got my clear stamping block and run my tape runner on the top so that I could attach the foam cut stamp to it. Don't worry the tape comes off easily afterwards.

I began by using the heart stamp from the three hearts and started stamping towards the bottom as I wanted a heavier concentration of hearts at the bottom so that it looked like they were floating from the sky, As I began stamping using a range of red and pink oxide inks it became apparent my idea wasn't working it just looked like one hot mess! I think the hearts were just too big and the red just too heavy plus the heart were in a wonky line instead of being randomly stamped.

I wasn't about to give up on it yet though and I got my abandoned coral oxide ink and just started working over the top of the card starting at the bottom and as I got towards the middle I switched to the worn lipstick oxide ink and then added a touch of Fossilized Amber Oxide over the top. The hearts were still visible but they didn't look so harsh against the white background. I still wasn't sure on the candied apple hearts though so I took a white pigment ink and stamped over the top of them to tone them down a little. This looked much better so I began stamping one of the little hearts from the heart of hearts die using the white pigment ink and the abandoned coral to give it a bokkeh effect.

I felt like there was a lot of pink going on now though and it needed a pop of white to tone it down a little so I cut out a frame using the Inside Scalloped Rectangle Dies and cut out the word sending from the Sending Die. I stuck both of these down to the base making sure the frame was straight and you could see a tiny bit of the pink sticking out on every side of the frame. Then I added the sending word die in white offset to the left and diagonal. The word love is still temporarily stuck down so we will attach this next but first we need to get our card base ready I use precut and scored ones but because English sizes are different to American ones I usually have to chop a bit off around the edges. Once my card base was folded I could adhere the card to the base I unattached the word love making sure I didn't loose the centre of the O and put it to one side. I then ran the tape runner across the back of the card and adhered it to the base leaving around a 5mm white frame around it. The word love I attached with foam tape to make it stand out. Then I finished it off with a few white nuvo drops. I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and I wish you happy crafting!

Crazy Stitched Frame Dies

Inside Scalloped Octagons

Inside Scalloped Rectangle Dies

Heart of Heart Dies

 

Sending Die

Stitched Alphabet Dies

Abandoned Coral Oxide Ink

Candied Apple Oxide Ink

Worn Lipstick Oxide Ink

Fossilized Amber Oxide Ink



White Nuvo Drops