Merry and Bright - Blog Hops with Heart

 

Time for our last Blog Hops with Heart for the year: Merry & Bright.  I have two cards for you today to show how, with a little planning, you can get more bang for your buck with die cuts.

One of my frustrations with Cricut cutting is that I can't always get my placement on a top panel exactly where I want it.  If you've been to my blog much at all, you know what a "use every scrap" kind of person I am.  Since most of my paper is 12x12, and I usually cut a top panel for my cards that measure 4" across, I can fit three panels across the width of my cardstock.  With metal die cuts, I can precisely place my image in the exact middle of my pre-cut panel.

I cut the snowflake from Sea Glass cardstock, used the die cut for the Christmas card and the negative space left over for the Thanks card.

Here are both cards individually along with instructions:

After die-cutting the snowflake in the center of a 4x 5.25" panel of Sea Glass cardstock, I ran it through the Confetti embossing folder and dabbed White Daisy ink gently--really, really gently--before taking it off the folder to highlight the raised dots.  I glued the panel directly to my card base, taking care around the fragile edges of the snowflake.  Next, I stamped "so very much" in the bottom of the opening in Slate ink.  I die cut the "thanks" three times, once in silver glitter paper and twice in plain white paper.  I wanted the word to have a little extra "oomph" and gluing three layers of paper together is an easy way to pop a die cut up (and give it extra strength).

By changing the orientation of the card, you could use a longer die-cut sentiment like "Christmas" in place of "Thanks" and stamp "Merry" in the opening.  If you're like me, you need to finish up a few more Christmas cards in the next day or two for mailing to friends and family.

I used my Cricut to cut the decorative edge top panel for this card once in Oh, Deer patterned paper and once in Slate. I did some finagling with the Artistry cartridge and Basic Shapes to make it. Here's a link to my Design Space file if you'd like to recreate it. After cutting, I glued them to the card base. Next came the two snowflakes: the Sea Glass one I cut from the center panel of the Thanks card plus a white one cut from White Daisy cardstock. 

Before adding them to the card, I painted them with thinned down iridescent white acrylic paint.  Another way to achieve this same look is to use either "Wink of Stella" or CTMH Shimmer Brush.

The sentiment is from the now retired "Artfully Sent" Cricut cartridge companion stamp sets.  I embossed it in white over Sea Glass, trimmed the edges to create the banner, and mounted it over top of the snowflakes with foam tape.  A few gold sequins later, the card was done.

I think this is one of my favorite cards of the year.  I did garner inspiration for it quite directly so, in the interest of playing nice in blog land, here's the link to the original card made by the amazing Debbie Hughes.

As always, this blog hop is a circle.  You should have come from Stephanie's blog, and you are now headed to Wendy's blog.  It's a short hop this month, so it won't take much time to get some fabulous inspiration.

Until next time,
Becca