**Please note - we have two posts to share with you today! Be certain to scroll down and leave a comment for Julia as well! Thank you!
As we stood in the Lawn Fawn booth this past CHA admiring the cards, one in particular popped out at Julie and I (well lots of cards popped, but this one... well...) We squealed with delight at the genius behind the card. As good fortune would have it the creator of that fabulous little card walked into the booth moments later and we were introduced to Nina Yang. My goodness but the lady is clever and talented, so to have her joining us and sharing her talents with us here in the CLASSroom today is so much fun!
Nina is author to a marvelous blog called Waffleflower. It is filled with a myriad of treasures as Nina designs for Hampton Arts, Neat & Tangled, Paper Smooches Sparks and Runway Inspired Challenges! You will definitely enjoy the inspiration she shares there. I would appreciate if you would head over to Nina's blog now and help us thank her for sharing her talents with us here in the CLASSroom today. Please leave a comment on her post about being a guest here. As our way of thanking you for taking the time to do so you will have a chance to win some of the new products she used to create this post! You know you are in the right place if you see the following picture.
Thank you Nina for inspiring us on so many levels - your projects are simply fabulous! -Ellen
Just a side note - the Lawn Fawn CHA release is scheduled to arrive at our warehouse February 20th or 21st. Simply click the notify box and fill it in if you would like to receive an email when the product arrives.
Hello there! I’m very excited to be joining Ellen Hutson in the CLASSroom today to share some fun ways to use dies.
One of my favorite CHA Winter 2013 releases is the A Birdie Told Me die set by Lawn Fawn. What I like most about this set is the cute hand drawn twist to the speech bubble trend. I am showcasing the mini circle bubble today.
First up, the birdie hello card.
The speech bubble is designed to come out from the right but we need it to come out from the left for the bird. For stamps, we can do mirror stamping to get it right; for a die, we just need to die cut it on the back of the paper and flip it! Then diecut the heart from the bubble to create a negative image.
Have you noticed that I used the thought bubble die from the same set to create my tree? The bird die makes it easy to create a a-bird-in-the-tree scene.
Here is a close-up. I used lots of foam adhesive to add dimension. I used cardstock but it should be fun to mix and match your patterned paper for a different look.
On the first card, we used two different dies to create the speech bubble. On the second card, We are going to use the negative piece after die cutting a bunch of bubbles to be the base and raise the heart in the middle.
Play with the patterned paper combination and trace the speech bubbles down with a pencil.
No need to be perfect when cutting the bubbles out. We will need the extra paper to mount them with foam adhesives.
I usually add foam dots on the back of my front piece. This way it is sure that they will not show up through the windows. Don’t forget to remove the pencil lines before you mount the patterned paper pieces to the back.
The sentiments were stamped on some scrap and cut out. This is the fun part of speech bubbles and frames – mix and match your sentiment stamps!
The sentiments were adhered to card with some foam adhesive as well. Play with the positions until you are satisfied.
Now, I am very excited to introduce the third way to use the die – make a 3D flower with it!
The little tail on the speech bubble is just perfect for making a flower like this. I first heat embossed the cardstock with the triangle stamp to give some texture to my flower but you can also use patterned paper instead.
Diecut 6 bubbles from the paper and poke a hole in each of them as shown. No need to be perfect but be careful not to tear the paper.
Start with 3 petals with a brad and secure; add foam adhesive to the other 3 petals and adhere them to the back of the first three. Arrange them to your liking.
There is one more tip I would like to add. The white embossed letters are hard to show up on bright yellow cardstock. I used the heat emboss resist technique to give it a shadow so it can stand out from the background. Just make sure that you use a water-based ink for this technique.
The frame die I used is a new CHA release by Paper Smooches. It is my absolutely favorite frame of all time. Have you noticed that it is very similar to the one in the PS logo? Timeless! I have another 1 die 3 way post using the Duo Die 2 on my blog.
That’s it for today! I hope that you are inspired to play more with your dies.
Thank Ellen and Kelly for going through all the trouble to get the new products to me so quickly. Patterned paper I used is from Daphne’s Closet 6x6 pad by Lawn Fawn. Ellen handpicked the cardstocks that go very well with the paper. Check out the supply list below for details.
