Monthly Swap Card

 I sometimes participate in a monthly card swap. 
This is the card I have made for this months swap.

This had to be a quick card as I have a load of stuff to do and make over the next couple of months.

This is a design I would use in one of my hidden hinge scrap books. I like the design, so I thought I'd try and scale it down and try it as a card.
I started this card by stamping the background paper using Always Artichoke ink on a shimmery olive green paper. 

The pretty band across the centre was  created using  Spellbinders Curvy Borders 2  dies twice. Now this takes a little bit of practice to get the design  to match up on both sides .

After cutting the lacy edges I used one of the less fancy dies to cut the pretty paper panel that runs through the middle. Again this takes a little practice  to get this even and match up with the lacy layer.
Even with measuring and taping dies down before cutting I found it could still be slightly out. 
Hence the bling to hide or distract from  any
unevenness.
I bought some bling ribbon and cut it into strips. I then ran a flame very quickly along the edge of the strips to melt the threads back to make it look neater. 

This stuff looks like it's encrusted with diamante, but it's not.  It's just hundreds of tiny cups that have a faceted inside and a metallic coating, which makes them sparkle a lot and giving the impression of thousands of tiny diamonds. It is obviously much lighter in weight that the real diamante so you can use loads of it on a card without worrying about how much it will cost to post and of course it's a faction of the price of the real thing. 
I think,  I paid 59p  for two metres but if I cut it  into single strips i'll have 12 metres.



I had bit of  an issue with glue attaching the bling to the card but managed to rectify it by using
Art Glitter glue..I have to say this is pretty good stuff...grabs quickly so you don't have to sit  holding things together  for ages waiting for the glue dry.
The flower I made using Heartfelt creations Arianna blooms stamp and dies. 

The leaf die I used for these leaves is from the Heartfelt creations Delicate Asters die set. The last thing to add was the stamped  and die cut sentiment. 
Well,  this card is off to Suffolk in the morning I do hope the recipient likes it.

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.

                                                                                                                 

Arianna blooms stamps and die set.

It feels like an eternity since I last posted or even visited my blog. I am sure it's not  really as long as it feels. The reason being is, I have been very busy packing up  my kitchen, cleaning and having floor tiles containing asbestos removed. Then cleaning again and putting everything back.  If that wasn't enough, the house was due a full electrical inspection too. More inconvenience, so I haven't done much over the last few weeks apart from hump furniture around.  

I also celebrated a birthday last week and received some wonderful crafty presents. I also treated myself to a set of Heartfelt Creations coordinating dies and stamps. I chose the Arianna Blooms set. I really love the fact you can stamp and cut 5 flowers at time.  I am always put off the flower building dies due to the amount of individual petals you have to cut to build one flower, so this is great for the impatient stamper /die cutter like me. 

There is something else I love about these dies too but I'll come to that in a little while.

They are very easy to use. First you stamp the flowers then you place the die over the stamped image and tape the die down to prevent it moving and run it through  the die cutting machine. It's as simple as that.

 

 

Now this is the other thing I love about these die and stamp sets.

Take a look at the photo of the die below.

Notice the cutting edge of the die is on the edge of the die. That means the white border around the image is minimal.

 I have never liked dies that leave the wide border around the images. But when I saw how close these dies cut I knew, I  just had to have them.

 

 

Once cut out you can colour and assemble any way you like . Here are a few examples.

 

The blue one I inked with SU 's bashful blue and brocade blue ink and then applied some Wink of Stella to the petals for some shimmer. Personally I think it's too shimmery. I think a light spritz of shimmer paint mixed with a some Isopropyl  (rubbing alcohol)

For the purple one I used SU's Pale Plum and Concorde Crush to colour this one.  I chose cream stamens and pearls for the centre of this one.

 

I used SU's  Hello Honey to colour this one and black stamens for contrast and one of those flat back gems that look like Jelly tots.

 

 You can colour these or stamp them on any colour card, add as many stamens as you like,  add  gem stones or pearls. vary the stamen colours, heat emboss the stamped image. stamp them on Vellum. The possibilities are almost endless.

 

There is one more thing I have not yet mentioned and that is the shaping of the petals.

for all of the above flowers I  lightly sprayed the back of each layer with water and crushed/ pleated each petal  length ways down each and every  petal and allowed the petals to dry off a little before opening them up and layering up.

You can shape each petal with a ball tool instead for a more rounded look flower. It's great to be able to get  several different looking flowers from one die set. 

 I favour the crushed petal version.

The rounded version is slightly  quicker to make.

 

If you want to see demos on making these flowers go to ...  YouTube and watch Heartfelt Creations  Emma Lou 's flower shaping videos.

 

As you can see .....I got carried away.