Do More With Your Dies (AECP Level 1)

In my day job, as they say, I run a coaching and mentoring business - Rock Your Fabulous Biz. As part of that, I have been co-writing a business book called The Working Women's Guide to Menopause, When The Heat is On, Don't Sweat It!! It's just gone live on Amazon. VERY exciting!

On top of that, I went for my accreditation as a Master Mentor, and I passed. I'd done my Master Coach assessment in Feb, and I really wanted to go for my Master Mentor too, especially as I wanted to add it into our menopause book. I've had quite a bit of prep to do as I needed to provide an evidence portfolio. Hence, no blogging time lol. I'm back to it now though :)

So, enough about my biz, let's get onto the cards. The next masterclass I did as part of my AECP training was Easy Die Cutting Techniques, run by Yana Smakula. I loved this class and learnt lots of fun new things. I really loved learning ways to do inlaid die-cutting and negative die-cutting so I thought I'd create two cards around these lessons.

I honestly can't tell you how much I'm loving doing these classes. If you want to learn new techniques, you really should check them out. You don't have to do the full training programme, you can just do any classes that you fancy doing. No pressure 😉

Now before I start, let me tell you something. My hubby is amazingly supportive and helpful, but at the time of picking a title for this blog post - not so much 😂. The convo went like this:

• Me: What catchy title could I use for this leaf card?

• Him: Black leafy thanks card?

🙄 It's navy and I'm not sure that's such a catchy title, are you?! 🤣 Anyways, onto the card!

Card 1 - Inlaid Die Cutting

I wanted to have a play with large dies and inlaid die-cutting, so I pulled out my Altenew Leaf Mix Dies and got to work.

I started by laying down three different shaped leaf dies on the top left edges of the navy cardstock panel that I had cut to 6" x 4". Once I had die-cut those,

I then die-cut another two different leaves in the bottom right-hand corner.

I kept the pieces that fell out of the dies to one side so that I could put them back into the matching die-cut shapes afterwards.

I then die cut a stitched rectangular panel from silver cardstock and attached this to a white 6" x 4" card base. I added the navy card piece onto the silver panel and popped the extra pieces back in to create the full leaves.

Next, I die-cut a hexagonal shape in hot pink, then die-cut the Altenew Script Words 2 'Thanks' die and added this to the hot pink panel. (Sidenote: I LOVE this 'Thanks' die! It's gorgeous!) Before attaching the pink panel I splattered the card with some silver paint.

Top Tip: If your card looks a bit dull and needs a little extra something added to it, add some splatters in metallic, black, white or colour to match your design. It only takes a moment, but it makes a huge difference.

I then added fun foam to the back of the pink panel and attached it to the card base, and to finish I added three clear gems.

I was really pleased with how this turned out. It's quite clean and simple for me, and a bit trendier than cards I would normally make.

Card 2 - Inlaid Die Cutting

For my second card, I die cut a stitched rectangle and then stencilled it with a Pink Pearl Altenew Mini Ink Cube and the Altenew Trellis Stencil to create the background. I then experimented with a new (to me) powder that you activate with water called Lindy's Gang Magical Shaker - Oktoberfest Orange.

I then stamped six butterflies from the Altenew Ori kami stamp set and coloured them in using my zig pens. In order to do inlaid die cutting, I positioned my butterfly die on the stencil background at various angles to create a path of butterflies (essentially, I die cut four butterflies out of the background, so that I could then inset the coloured butterflies).

I attached the remaining unused butterflies to the two centre inlaid butterflies, lifting their wings to create some dimension. I added some little black pearls to create interest to their "bodies"!

Using the Altenew Hello and Hugs die set, I die cut the word 'hugs' in white and black and offset them to create a shadow effect. To create balance, I then stamped the 'here for you' sentiment from the Altenew Bamboo Rose stamp set onto white card stock. Next, I cut the sentiment out with a stitched banner die. I then used the stitched banner die again to cut out a black banner, before offsetting the two banners, again creating a shadow effect.

Top Tip: To create balance in your card, think about how you can bring in the theme of your overall design with your sentiment. For example - I chose the 'Here for you' sentiment specifically because I thought the calligraphy-style font worked well with the origami theme.

I hope you liked the cards, and that you're inspired to check out the masterclass and play with the inlaid die-cutting method.

Thanks for popping by. Have a great day!

Supplies Used:

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