Hungry Heffy Crafts

You Are So Beautiful – Stretching Your Word Dies! ft. Honey Bee Stamps

on October 24, 2016

Hello Friends!

Today I am sharing a bright and encouraging card, and also focusing on a fun way how to stretch your stash when using dies!

This card started when I wanted to combine some of the floral images from Zen Florals, with the leaves and berries in the Country Wreath stamp set. I love how the images work so well together. First I stamped these with Mementio Tuxedo Black ink onto watercolour cardstock, and then used my Tambi Gansai watercolours to colour them in!

When playing with the Country Wreath set, I decided to play around and attempt to use the circular branch stamp into an oval shape. I was thrilled to find that it was easy to obtain an oval shape – and this means that this one stamp gives you even more versatility! I used my MISTI tool, but you can easily manipulate the stamp straight onto an acrylic block to achieve the same results.

So I stamped the oval in Antique Linen distress ink onto some white card, and I knew I wanted to add my floral images on either side. But I couldn’t make up my mind what I would like to put in the centre of the oval.

So I started looking at the Honeycuts dies that I have in my stash – and suddenly realised that I could use some of these dies to create my own custom greeting!

Earlier that day, Mister Postie had just delivered a new package of goodies from Honey Bee Stamps, which included the Beautiful HoneyCuts Die. I simply HAD to use that on the card! That much I did know! And so it made perfect sense to create a greeting which read ‘You are so Beautiful’. And before long I had it all figured out!

To create the bespoke die cut words, I simply ran my Honey Cuts dies through my cuttlebug a few times, and snipped out the letters that I needed. I used the ‘Y’ from the Prayers Honeycuts set and ‘OU’ from the Fabulous Honeycuts to create the word YOU. And then I used the ‘A’ from the Fabulous Honeycuts and the ‘R’ and ‘E’ from the Prayers Honeycuts to create the word ARE. The word SO was also created by using the Fabulous Honeycuts!

I wanted to build up the die cuts to create a dimensional word – almost giving the illusion of a chipboard letter. So I used three layers of cardstock for each word. This also helped me when sticking letters together as it made a stronger bond between the ligatures.

If you look really closely, you can see the uneven join between the ‘R’ and ‘E’ in the word ARE, but it is barely noticeable. To help disguise this even more, I first added some colour to the die cuts using a ink dabber, and then I used clear embossing powder to emboss the whole letter. This gives a lovely even, shiny finish to each word!

To give extra special attention to the word beautiful, I decided to create a two tone colour effect using Squeezed Lemonade distress ink on the upper part of the die cut, and then added Picked Raspberry pink distress ink to the lower half, before embossing with clear embossing powder! I think it really makes it stand out!

To finish the card, I mounted the white card onto some pink cardstock, and then added this to a notecard covered with some yellow flocked scrapbook paper! I thought the flocked paper gave a really interesting, tactic feel to the card, and I love the way the swirls on this paper coordinate with the swirly motion on the brown branches stamp that frames the greeting!

And that was the card done…. well…almost! I simply couldn’t resist adding a few little sequins from the Birthday Bash Mix Collection and some gorgeous Clear Dew Drops on the centre of my larger stamped flowers!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope that you are inspired to look at your dies a little differently to see what extra words you could possibly create using them!

Have a crafty day!

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Cool Friend – Peek-a-boo Penguin Tri-fold Card

on October 22, 2016

Morning everyone! I hope you had a fab week so far!

Is it too soon for Christmas cards? 🙂 I think that I have done pretty well to last until now, don’t you?

Well, even though it is not technically a Christmas card, today’s card is ALL about this sweet, wintery penguin from the More Flakey Friends stamp set! I just ADORE this cutie! In fact, I loved him so much, that I really wanted to make him the front and centre of the card. I wanted a card that was fun and interesting, but didn’t take away from the awesome image – an image that really speaks for itself.

And so I decided to create my own trifold card, with peek-a-boo panels. I love how it almost feels like you are looking through a window at our fuzzy friend!

To start building the card, I used a 4-bar stitched rectangle die to cut out four panels of cardstock. Next I ran two of the panels through the cuttlebug with a small Spellbinders label shaped die. I had to run this back and forth a few times, and add a paper shim to make sure the die cut through both pieces of cardstock – but it worked absolutely fine.

Next I stacked up the remaining two rectangle panels, and ran this through the cuttlebug with a slightly larger label shaped die. I used the small label die cut to help me position the larger die, so that when the card was assembled, the ornate apertures would line up nicely to frame mister penguin.

Next I cut a piece of cardstock the same height as the 4 bar rectangles, but slightly wider, so I could create the back panel. I used a score board to create creases on the left and right of this panel, so that there were flaps on both edges. These flaps act like hinges for the card – so I adhered the side pieces in place, by sandwiching the flap, and a piece of acetate, between the two identical pieces of card with the ornate aperture. Once I had done this on both sides – the assembly was complete, and the fun began – the decorating! I promise it is much easier to do than it is to explain! 🙂

I decided to use a smaller version of the 4 bar stitched rectangle die to build up a decorated panel that I would stick on the inside of the card. I cut several panels from smooth, white cardstock, and die cut snowy hills and a tree border, before adding colour with a little distress ink blending. I kept the colours soft and muted, so that my stamped penguin would really pop against the background. As for mister penguin, I added a little, teeny, weeny bit of blue colour around the inside edge, just to give him some depth, and added some simple colouring to his beak and feet- all with copic markers.

For fun, I wanted to add some snow on top of the trees in the background, so I used a white sakura glaze pen to give them a snowy cap – and then I had the idea to add snow onto the acetate of the inside flap. I LOVE the way this turned out! It is so fun! The little white dots give the impression of falling snow, but at the same time making sure that mister penguin can be seen in all his glory when the card is open!

Even though it is fast approaching Christmas, I couldn’t quite allow myself to add a Christmas greeting, so instead I decided to use the Brush Grunge Alpha set to create my own greeting! This way it would be used for a birthday, a thank you card, or for any other occasion- just with a wintery twist! To make sure that the card had a nice finished look, when fussy cutting out ‘Cool Friend’, I held another piece of card behind my stamped cardstock, so I cut out two identical pieces of white cardstock. This meant that I could stick the stamped greeting on the front and add a matching piece of blank cardstock on the back.

And that is it!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have a fabulous day!

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You Did It – Let’s Party! – A Terrific Party Animal Trio! {video}

on October 16, 2016

Hello crafty friends,

ohhhhhhh what a week! It’s been a bit of a mad house with us! Play dates and commissions, and meetings and homework! And to top it all off, our printer was on the fritz! It has been driving me crazy for months, and finally I just splurged for a new one! HURRAH for technology that works!

The great news is that I finally got the Lawn Fawn Party Animal stamp and die set -YAY!! – it was been on back order for weeks and weeks, and then SURPRISE – it arrived! Of course, the postie tried to deliver it within the only 20 mins of the day that we were all out of the house! GRR! So I nipped out on Tuesday to get it from the depot – took a quick excited look in the package, uploaded a quick celebratory ‘HAPPY MAIL’ photo to Instagram and then set to the side until later in the week when I finally had some time to play!

I have been drooling over this stamp set for ages, so I knew exactly what I wanted to make with it. So it wasn’t until tidy-up time that i realised that one of my stamps was missing – the little party hat with the flag!

Oh boy I hunted high and low! I looked at every item i used throughout the card making process. I pulled out stuff that i didn’t use. I patted down my clothes, I crawled round the floor… and about 1am I decided to refer to the video footage on my video camera. I then realised that the stamp wasn’t in the set right at the very start of the video. huh?

I was tired, and grumpy, and frustrated – so I made my way to bed! As I climbed into bed, I was reading some instagram comments from lovely sympathetic people, when I remembered my Happy Mail photo from the few days before. And on the photo, you can clearly see that the stamp is not in the package! HOW DID I MISS THAT? Crazy! But, I phoned the shop who told me to contact Lawn Fawn, and so I am hoping we can get my stamp replaced. Fingers crossed!

BUT
over to the card! Here it is!

I have paired up some of the animals from the Party Animal stamp set, with the skunk from the Stinkin’ cute set. I wanted to keep the card bright, so i coloured the image with light copic colours, rather than going very dark. To add a pop of background colour, I used some SSS dye inks to blend some colour onto the die cut circles in the background!

I wanted to use the ‘Let’s Party’ stamp from this set, but to make it more interesting, I paired it up with a smaller greeting from the Jump for Joy set – i think they work well together, don’t you?

This time, I decided not to use black ink for my greeting (I nearly always use black!), but instead kept my colours to the pink-blue-yellow colours that I used for the background circles! I think it gives a nice lift to the card!

Thanks for stopping by, and fingers crossed I get that little stamp sorted!

cheers

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