Stamp n' Stencil

They say that we only use 10% of our brains, or 5% in my case as many would argue! Sometimes I feel the same about die-cutting. There is so much potential which remains untapped so I thought It would be nice to share a couple of techniques which I haven't used for ages.

I am using  the Bigz Heart Trio die. This is one of eight fabulous Bigz dies that have been designed for Sizzix by Echo Park which are perfect for a huge range of applications, I know that Angela, our textile guru is very excited about them!

I love the shapes of these hearts and they are so big and bold offering a blank canvas ready to be explored. I am using a selection of Distress inks as shown below and at this point I only have a sketchy idea of how they will turn out.

I attached some self adhesive foam to a square of mount board and Die-cut my shape... Aren't Bigz dies great!!!

I applied the ink pads directly onto the foam side of the die-cut shape before gently spritzing with clean water using a mister. Next, I pressed the shape face down onto a square of white card as one would do with a stamp.

 For my next technique I die-cut the same heart from paper and used the negative as a stencil. I placed the stencil onto white card and applied the same inks using foam applicators.

 I removed the stencil and lightly spritzed with clean water before drying with a heat tool. Next, I replaced the stencil and used a text stamp to add a little detail.

Finally, I die-cut a 3-D flower and some leafy foliage from white card before forming the flower and curling the leaves to add a little dimension. Click on the highlighted text to see the dies used.

Here are the finished cards. As you can see I have distressed the edges of the white card and attached each to a kraft base card secured with some suitably wonky stitching very kindly provided by our Angela although I feel I should point out that the 'wonky' stitching was by my request!

I applied PVA to the foliage and dipped it in gold glitter and I used a postmark sentiment stamp from the good people at Lily of the Valley (great set, very versatile!)

One card is for a wedding and the other for a special birthday girl. Hope they like 'em?

dreaming of spring

Hopefully spring is just around the corner, yes I'm hopeful!  So to brighten things up, I figured it was time for an intervention.

The snowdrops are still blooming in my garden, and the crocus have shown themselves, the daffs are making good headway already.  I'm ready for some colour!

So armed with some pretty wool felts from Hantex, a 12" polystyrene ring, a bunch of ribbon, a handful of dies and my Big Shot machine I set to work.

Dies used were:

656520 Flourish, Floral with leaves  for the blue forget me nots

658053 Flower Layers with Heart Petals

656545 Flowers 3D  

658105 Leaves Plain #2

I stitched a small dart into the leaves to give them some structure. 

The Flourish flower I folded in four.  I used my Long Arm pins for the flower centers, The pearl heads were perfect.

I am thrilled with how this turned out, 

And thanks to Angela, I was lucky enough to attend one of her 'make & take' sessions at Stitches trade show, I don't think my spring wreath would have quite so good.

So after this adventure with felt, and a discussion with a colleague, there may be a few wedding decorations in the future too!  I am really excited at the creative possibilities these opened up.