Some new dies - Alphabets and THOSE Birds!

 I have my Bird Crazy dies! Been waiting a few weeks to get these, but actually a lot less time than I expected,as they were not expected over here till the end of August. However, Jenny at The Artistic Stamper had them early, last Monday, so here they are. Apparently also, according to Jennies Facebook page, Sizzix are considering doing an accessories die set- hats/masks/ etc etc- they have been asking for customer feedback to see if it's wanted.
 The other two sets came about thanks to a video I watched the other night, which featured a card made using the die set on the lower right, a set called Coles ABC, by Lawn Fawn. The only die alphas I own are for my old Quickutz Squeeze tool, and whilst they work fine for cutting out individual letters, if you want to form a word, it becomes a nightmare, as you cannot see the actual die position.

For anyone not familiar with them, this is what they look like. You can see the cut shape on the cutting side, but the back of the die is blank, making positioning letters in a phrase or word a bit hit and miss.


The Lawn Fawn set, from Crafty Devils Papercrafts, are all joined by little legs, which need to be separated, by twisting them apart. I also used a pair of wire cutters to remove most of the excess.

 
The size of the letters is almost 1", 23mm, high, which I think is a good general size for most cards.

 It includes a question mark and exclamation mark, but no numbers or ampersand.

The second alpha set is by X-cut, and also from Crafty Devils.Its called 'Wedding Alphabet & Numbers'. The dies on this one are slightly larger than the Lawn Fawn set at almost an inch and a half, or 34mm.
 It also includes the numbers 0-9, an ampersand, exclamation mark and question mark.






 The addition I really likes was 'st''nd''rd' and 'th'.







 I already have a card in the making, which I will share tomorrow when it's finished, using the Lawn Fawn set, and based loosely around the card I saw.
                                                                             



   Final dies to show you are the Bird Crazy ones from Tim Holtz/Sizzix, to go with the Tim stamps.
You get the 6 dies to match the stamps, then a further 12 dies, of eyes/beaks and wings.
I've already used one of the dies to cut out a bird I stamped, and I was surprised how easy it was to line up, and how well it cut out.. You'll see that in tomorrows card!

Congratulations card.

Our friend who had the birthday kept me busy this week. On Friday, the day before his birthday, he passed his driving test at the first attempt. So, a dash upstairs to make a card!
 The background is a square cut from an old map book saved for this sort of thing.

 The 'L' plate is an alphabet stamp, from the same set as the Numerals used on the birthday card. Stamped in Adirondack Classic Cherry, then coloured with a Ruby Promarker.
 I sliced it in a curved half, to represent torn up 'L' -plates, with a scalpel. I did try cutting one in half with deckle edged scissors, but didn't like how it looked.
 The car keys are an old Quickutz die, the sort that got used with a Squeeze tool. I remember buying a few of these dies really cheap, when it was clear the Tool and dies were going out of fashion, once things like the Cuttlebug came along. I cut out two keys from silver card for the key part, and two from black for the fobs.
 I sandwiched the 'key' bit between one black and one silver 'fob' piece, and glued them together. Threaded them onto a key ring, and lay them with the black part of the fob at the front.

Attached the map, then the 'L'plate with foam dots. The keys were added with Pinflair glue gel when they were dry.
 Congratulations stamped in Classic Cherry again, and also mounted with foam dots.

85th Birthday

The lady who ordered the Ruby Anniversary card, also wanted a card for her Mothers 85th Birthday, and again I went with an easel design. The base and face of the easel were covered in a rose print paper, and both edged with a silver peeloff border and corners. as the lady seems to be wearing a pale lilac and silver dress, I went with these colours for the card. I cut silver & lilac paper with a deckle edge blade on three sides, then punched a fancy border on the last side. These were layered up, then the photo matted on top. I wrapped White & lilac ribbon around the front and tied in a bow before I mounted it onto the easel. A triple embossed heart in White & silver finished the front. The base uses Nesties Petite scalloped rectangles, again in Silver & lilac with white/lilac roses (Craft Creations) in the corners.The word MOM was cut out with a Quickutz squeeze and Alphabet die. Its been a very long time since I last used that- I'm not even sure if they are still making them! I bought it very early in my crafting, to add names, ages etc to cards, then got annoyed at not having any real choice in size of letters, and that I would constantly have to buy new Alpha sets if I wanted a different style, and still not have much of a size range. So I ended up buying a Silhouette digital cutter- I found them on a really good promotion, loved the fact that I could cut any font on my PC, in any size I wanted. I have had it now for about 7 years, and I have to say it was the best money ever spent, when you consider the cost of Alphabet sets/shape dies for manual machines.

The Writings on the Wall

I decided I would finally get around to joining in with a challenge,and that I would do something that wasn't a card for the first time, so I went over to Hels Sheridans blog, Ink on my Fingers, to see what her Sunday Stampers challenge was for this week. The theme is 'Writing', and to be honest I didn't have any idea what I was going to do, at first. Hels mentioned that her project started life as a wooden Ikea frame, and I liked that idea, but don't have any of those! However, I do have piles of Clip-Frames of all sorts of sizes, so I dismantled one of those, and used the back to cut out two more rectangles from mountboard, then cut out the centres to give me a frame. I used two because one didn't seem thick enough.

                                       I stacked these all up, and stuck them together with DST.
 I quite like the artworks you can buy where the picture spills over onto the frame, if you know what I mean, so that was where my mind was taking me with this. I cut some cream tissue paper down, and overstamped it with a script stamp, using Versafine Sepia.This was stuck down over the whole frame, very carefully(!),not worrying about damaged bits, as it all smooths out in the end.Some more bits of script were stamped onto spare tissue, and I created some mini envelopes then used some excess stamped tissue to make some mini letters. All tied up with some burgundy ribbon. Some lace was aged with Distress Ink, Antique Linen, then added to the inside of the frame, along with some pearl string, the bundle of love letters, an old ear-ring and a cameo made from a Quickutz die. I finished it off with a few stick on pearls, a triple embossed heart and a group of flowers . When the tissue had dried completely I added a little Antique linen distress ink to the edges.

Work in progress