Hello Scrappy Blogers! Today's post comes from our Guest Designer Amira from
Handmade in Oz. Amira will be taking over the reigns and with a brilliant tutorial on cardmaking with Spellbinders Shapeabilities dies.......
Happy 2015 to one and all. My name is Amira and I have been an avid customer of Aunty Vera's and along the way, Vera and I have shared our art and craft together, as well as lots of laughs about kids, cats and life in general. I was elated and honoured when Vera asked me to be a guest designer on her blog :) I hope to bring you tips, tricks and ideas on new products that I absolutely love and think are...well,
Fabulous!!
So, to kick off January, I thought I would bring you 4 different ways of using the new
Spellbinders "It's a Hoot" Shapeabilities Decorative Card Fronts.
These Shapeabilities have the unique quality of being able to cut, emboss and stencil.
You get 2 dies in the pack:
- A border that measures 4.25" wide x 5.25" tall (10.8 x 14 cm)
- An inset that measures 3 7/8" wide x 5 3/16" tall (9.8 x 13.2 cm)
I love these card fronts because you can do ao much with them. here are a few ideas:
Style 1: The Lazy Crafter's Card
So the easiest way to use this die is to die-cut the inset and slap it on some patterned paper and boom instant card.
But since I'm here to give you insiders' tips and tricks let me start by saying that several tools become your best friends when using this die.
Otherwise, you will get something that looks a lot like this and go into "Craft Angry" mode.
However, when done right, even the wax paper gives the most delightful of die-cuts.
Ok, so on to the lazy card. You can choose to die-cut straight onto your card or a piece of cardstock to then attach onto your card (as above).
Here are a few card looks I came up with using various patterned papers. I must say I do like this one as well with the kraft cardstock:
Style 2: Making your own background.
For this look, I desided to make my own blue sky background using
Distress Inks Broken China and Mowed Lawn and a nifty home-made cloud stencil I fashioned myself. The background it produces works without fail everytime. It's my favourite go-to background of all time.
I made a maroon coloured frame to go around the background, then put foam dots on the corner of the owl inset as well as on some owls to give them a more dimensional effect. I think the card turns out really nice.
Here are a few more ideas I came up with for making your own background.
1. Spray ink with Clear heat embossing (I do love the black owl inset).
2. Distress Ink blended background with gold heat embossing (leaf stamp not pictured).
Style 3: Partial use of the die.
You can always just use part of the inset to design your card the way you see fit.
In the following card on the left, I left out the bottom row of owls and instead chose to fussy cut the flowers in the lower right hand side of the card. I also added a solid red banner which can be used to display the sentiment and embellished it with a single cute wood ladybug.
For the card on the right, I removed the middle row of owls and inserted a panel of patterned paper. I then added a label with some brads and I used one of the owls as an embellishment piece along with a red heart. Cute! (I also added glitter which was still wet when I took the pic which explains the high sheen).
Style 4: Embellishing the owls.
I must say this was my favourite technique and produced some stunning results.
1. Use of flower soft as owl feathers - here I coloured the inset with
Distress Marker (Tea Dye) and added Stickles to the background to imitate a starry night sky.
2. Embossing the owl inset with an embossing folder and then die-cutting it to produce a textured look.
Here is another card:
You can also emboss the background with an embossing folder through your die-cut machine and use heavy weight patterned paper to produce this look. I really like it!
3. Using Perfect Pearls to decorate and embellish the owls -
For this card I coloured the frame of the inset with Mowed Lawn and the owls with Distress Marker Tea Dye. I placed the inset against black cardstock embossed with a stars embossing folder. I then applied glossy accents in 'blobs' on each owl and applied Perfect Pearls to give a beautifully textured card.
4. Using Liquid Pearls to decorate and embellish the owls.
For this card, I used my scalloped scissors to go around the edge of the inset to give it a different look. I then decorated the owls using gold Liquid Pearls. I then placed the inset on a background that was sponged Scattered Straw and my newly discovered Pearlescent DewDrop in Orchid shade. I then stamped the background with a star stamp and versamark ink and then heat embossed it.
And lastly, this has got to be my favourite. I fussy cut the leaves from a little stamp I have and coloured them with two tones of Faber Castell green. I then punched out little flowers and arranged them on the branches. Lastly, I added glitter rocks to the centres of the red flowers. This is cute!!
That's a wrap folks. I hope you have enjoyed my card ideas and that your creativity juices are bubbling and flowing. Thank you so much for stopping by. I would love to hear your comments and am more than happy to answer any questions below. Wishing you a Fabulous Day!
