A Delicate Aster... stamp and die set.

 

Another flower making post today.
But this time with  a very useful tip on lining up stamps with coordinating  dies.
I learnt this recently and just had to share.

I have only recently discovered Heartfelt Creations stamps and dies.... I have been an S.U junkie for the past five years so I haven't been looking at other company's products very much. But
 S. U  are making many changes at the moment, not only with their products but with the whole company and I am finding it difficult to get my head round all the changes. I am not sure I like the changes, the artwork or  the introduction of polymer stamps.
As you probably know I don't like polymer stamps much and S.U seem to be making more and more of their sets in polymer.  As a hobby demo,  I am finding less and less to spend my money on (which will come as a relief to my husband). So I have been looking around to see what else is available.
That's when I found these flower stamps and dies and just had to try them.

Unlike the Arianna Blooms stamp set these flowers are individual stamps and not in a block, so you have to cut one at a time.
You start by stamping the image on a piece of card stock a bit larger than you need.   I will call this..... Card stock A  for the purpose of this tutorial.

The cutting edge on these dies are NOT on the edge of the die, as it is on the Arianna Bloom set so it is difficult to line up the cutting edge with the stamped image.

Unless of course you already know the tip I am about to share with you.

Take a scrap of paper, smaller than card
stock A  but  big enough for the die,  tape the die face down to the paper, allow the tape to hang over the edge of the scrap paper.  As in the photo below.   


Run this through the die cutting machine and  then remove the flower from the centre of the die.  Leave the die attached to the paper along with the tape. 

Now flip the die  up as though  opening a door,  using the tape as a hinge.
Take your stamped image  Card stock A and place it under the paper template.  Line up the image with the aperture you have cut as accurately as you can. 

Once you have matched up the image with the aperture press those over hanging bits of tape down so they stick to the layer of card with your image on  Card stock A.  
Flip the die back over so it sits back into the original cut.  Do this carefully so not to disturb the card layers.   Then run it through a die cutting  machine again.   
                                            
These dies are designed to cut out the
 image without leaving a white border.
So positioning of the die is crucial.
 
Here you can see the over hanging sticky tape stuck to bottom layer of card and you can see the centre of the stamped flower through the hole in the centre off the die .                                                                    The next photo shows the flower after it's been cut out.     You can see how accurately you can cut these flowers out using this method.                                                            The next photo is of the left over card stock, just to prove the accuracy.

                                                                                To make the flower at the top of this post I used six layers of petals in total.  Two of the largest size, two of the next size down and two of the next size down.  To complete the flower  I sponged each petal with lilac ink.    I could however,  have just stamped the image onto lilac card stock in the first place.                          

The next step was to shape the flower.      Place the flower face side down on a sponge mat. Using a ball tool,  stroke  from just below the tip of the petal down to the centre. The petals will curl upwards as you do this.  

                                      

When all petals have been curled turn the flower over and with a ball tool draw a circle firmly around the centre of the flower following the base of each petal, do this a few times to get the petals to lift. 

Repeat these steps on all  the layers.          You can then layer them up and stick them together making sure you off set each layer as you add it.

For the centre of the flower, I cut a narrow strip of  yellow card and cut a fringe along the edge and rolled it up and stuck it in the centre of my flower.  These Aster dies do come with a small stamen die  which I chose not to use on this flower. 

Time for bed for me, it's the early hours of the morning yet again and this post has taken many hours to write up.    I have been having a lot of issue with my blog of late so I do hope all this makes sense. So this is  goodnight from one very tired  Laura. x

 

Oh Darn it!!! I forgot to mention there is a very good video on you tube on this technique. It By Emma Lou of Heartfelt Creations.  I can't remember which dies and stamps she uses to demonstrate this method but I know it's not this one.  She has quite a few videos all worth watching..... she also seems to have just as many hair styles. 

Apologies for the poor spacing and lay out of this post.......I am having some issues with my blog. The more I try to correct the issues the worse things gets.