Dies and punches, always popular amongst cardmakers in particular for their easy batch-making versatility, are picking up in popularity again amongst scrapbookers as the Project Life scrapbooking system grows, looking for flatter solutions for their pocket pages.
There are a multitude of new dies and punches instore, from the beautifully simple versatile shapes to breathtakingly intricate. We have two suppliers of gorgeous new die shapes to introduce to you this week – Elizabeth Craft Designs and Cottage Cutz. Leanne Whitby demos a few of the new designs below.
We’d love to see your very own take on using dies and punches on your projects, whether it’s a card, a Project Life-style pocket page or a traditional scrapbook layout or even a beyond the page or mixed media project. Please just make sure you use Aussie Scrap Source suppliers in your work!
Email a picture of your entry to [email protected] with a note about any techniques and a brief materials lists to be in the running to win a fabulous prize pack of some of the featured products by next Sunday 6th October.
Below are some inspiring projects from our design team using some of our beautiful punches and dies in fun and unique ways.
Card making is so much more fun when you can create your own embellishments that perfectly co-ordinate with the papers you are working with and dies are the first thing Leanne heads for when doing this.
For this card Leanne used a number of dies which is one of the advantages of die cutting – you can mix and match the dies to make your own unique elements. In addition to using dies with cardstock and patterned paper Leanne also finds they are great for cutting velvet paper, fabric and felt.
This card features one of the new CottageCutz dies which Aussie Scrap Source are now stocking. CottageCutz are thin metal dies and they can be used with popular die-cutting machines. CottageCutz dies have been designed to cut all sorts of paper types from thin printer paper to thick cardstock, adhesive backed paper, vinyl and vellum. the dies can deliver more force and may cut additional materials such as lightweight chipboard (such as cereal box thickness), cork, craft foam, thin metal / metallic paper, and very stiff/thin specialty fabrics.
For this card Leanne cut the feature tag from fabric and cardstock and then she adhered them together. Stamping onto the fabric first she then finished off the tag with leaves cut from velvet paper and some cardstock flowers made with Elizabeth Craft Design layered flower dies teamed up with Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die. The tools in the Sizzix Susan’s Garden Tool Kit make sculpting and moulding the petals of the flowers really easy.
This card features one of the CottageCutz border dies. Leanne used the border die to add some intricate detail to the card front. Leanne found by using the CottageCutz Universal Metal Shim Plate with the border die the die cut cleanly and smoothly as the perfect amount of cutting pressure was achieved. She has also used Eyelet insert tag upside down so the detail remains a feature.
This card features some more of the new CottageCutz dies. Here Leanne created a pocket for the front of the card which has a tag inside. She then embellished the pocket with some of the co-ordinating tags, additional die cut elements using Sizzix Framelit and Tattered Florals dies together with hand cut fishtail banners.
PRODUCT LINKS:
Leanne took advantage of the tiny sizing of one of the new Elizabeth Crafts Designs dies to create of this tiny framed butterfly OTP project. Here she cut two of the top layers of the butterfly and mounted them on the hearts. The tiny sentiment was perfect to personalise the project. You can see more of Leanne’s work with Elizabeth Crafts dies in our weekend inspiration post on Friday.
PRODUCT LINKS:
Punches are such a go to tool/product when you what to give your project that extra wow factor. For this layout Louise has used the fabulous Martha Stewart layering punch to create 2 difference types of star shapes out of vellum, which adds an extra simple touch of visual texture!
PRODUCT LINKS:
Iris Uy considers punches and dies as among one of the best investments she has made in terms of building her tool collection for scrapbooking. Iris loves lots of hand-cur patterns and die-cuts in her pages. But when she is handed a collection pack with both patterned papers and solid sheets, she takes out her punches and dies to make good use of the solid sheets.
In this layout, Iris shows us how to make gorgeous edge borders for scrapbook pages using the EK Success Rose Bush Edge Punch.
PRODUCT LINKS:
