Quick post

This will have to be a quick post as I'm about to set off for the Midlands. I'm off to see various family members. My brother has just been taken into a hospice, his wife is just leaving hospital after breaking her arm in a fall,  my other brother has just had a second hip replacement, his wife is receiving chemo following cancer surgery and I'm due for an arthroscopy next month! What a jolly family!

This card is for the challenge at CAS MIX Up.

Both the bunnies and the circle were partially die cut.. as in fact was the front panel... as I have an American stitched die from SSS which doesn't fit the front of a British card cut from a sheet of A4. I have to cut the die from both ends in order to stretch the die cut to fit the base.

The bunnies were just shaded gently with a little grey Promarker and the tails given a dab of Fun Flock.

The background was just a watercolour wash sky!

Sorry it's so brief but I must be off!

Partial die-cut

When I saw the sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch this time I immediately fancied trying a partial die cut for the sentiment. I do have dies which give this effect without the messing around, but I particularly like this 'merry' die from Papertrey Ink.

I taped the die to the red card and placed just the part I wanted cutting, between the cutting plates for my Big Shot... the rest hung out over the edge. When I had passed it through the machine, I changed plates and added a rubber mat and embossed the lower part of the letters. I then removed the die and cut the top line with a combination of my Fiskars trimmer and a craft knife. 

The jingle bells and thread are from Memory Box (different die sets... the thread belongs with a needle which I seldom use but the thread die is a favourite) To finish it off I added a few random tiny stars.

Looking at the card just now I've realised that there is a really easy way of achieving this effect without messing around aligning up the die with the plates etc.

Cut out the word, cut the front panel and place the die just overlapping the top of the panel and cut it out. Throw away the scraps, then pop the whole word you just cut into the space! Easy peasy! 

I guess you'd call it faux partial die-cutting!

Twofer

Here are a couple of cards for Darnell's Twofer Challenge, which this time is leaves!

I chose to use a sycamore leaf die for both cards, adding smaller one for the first card, both cut from gold card and coloured with dye ink then sprayed with hair spray to fix.

I used the sketch from CASe this Sketch

I used a square stitched die to cut the aperture... extending it slightly to make more of a rectangular shape and adding a little burlap in the space. The sentiment is a die from Clearly Besotted.

For the second card I did a partial diecut with the die, adding an embossed image and a a completely cut out leaf popped onto dimensional pads.

I chose the Big Hugs sentiment die for the challenge at CASology which is heal.

I went out and bought a rug runner this morning to cover the splodges on the carpet in my craft room where I knocked off a pot of black ink . I was trying some acrylic pouring. Now I just need to do something about the splats on the ceiling! (Fortunately the ink washed out of my sweater!)

Read all about it

The challenge at Less is More this week is to use newsprint somewhere in the design of the card.

• I began by stamping an Impression Obsession newsprint stamp onto some ivory paper.
• Next I stamped some Clearly Besotted leaves and an acorn in shades of Distress Ink, over the first stamping, placing the stamps in the orientation I needed for my finished card.
• I die-cut the leaves and the acorn and stuck them onto a piece of ivory card in the desired position. At this point the leaves were surrounded by the card on all sides.
• I drew  a pencil line from the top to the bottom of the card at the point where I wanted the die-cutting of the leaves to end and placed the card onto the cutting plate aligning my pencil line with the edge of the plate. Only the part of my card I wanted cutting was on the plate, the rest was hanging off the end. I then popped the dies over the leaves and acorn and ran it through my Cuttlebug. It took three passes to do this.
• I did a little more jiggery pokery to cut out the rest of the card with a Lil Inkers stitched die, cutting only up to the leaves and then reversing back through the machine. 

The small leaf was cut by hand as there isn't a matching die for it.

The sentiment is from Gina K Designs.

I think maybe a few pictures are called for for this technique! I'll see what I can do. I'm hoping Santa will bring me a video camera so that I can start to do some proper tutorials, if I can get the hang of it!.

This card is in the same vein although there is no partial die-cutting here. The same background stamp was used with the same set of leaves from Clearly Besotted.

The embossing folder is Adagio from Couture Creations and the sentiment is from Stampin' Up. I thought that the little cascade of pearls added a sweet little touch.

Today we will be looking after our grandchildren until tomorrow... should be fun!