Welcome to my crafty blog. I’ve got two cards to share today, which wasn’t actually the plan when I started out! I was asked to make an engagement card, so went for this gorgeous ‘dove heart’ aperture die from Claritystamp. My intention was to make the card on the left, but I used the leftovers from the die cut to then make the card on the right (can’t bear to throw anything away!)

I started by cutting the die into a piece of Claritystamp’s ‘Toscana’ designer card. I’d already cut the card to fit onto a 5×7 card blank, so I could get the die in the right place.

It’s quite a quick card to make, as I then attached the card to a a 5×7 card blank, which gave the doves a white background through the gaps in the die. I stamped ‘congratulations’ using the Clarity ‘everyday sentiments’ stamp onto a scrap of white card, and heat embossed it with Wow ‘glamour green’ embossing powder. I trimmed the card down and attached it to the front of the picture, finishing it off with some green gems.

Fortuitously, when I’d taken the die off the piece of card, the small pieces of scrap had stayed in place on it (would never have happened if I’d been trying to do it!) Waste not, want not, as my mother used to say, so I cut a piece of double sided adhesive acetate and popped that over the die to catch the leftover pieces. Barbara Gray from Claritystamp calls this ‘trap the scrap’, and there’s a great video on this technique on their YouTube channel. With some careful rubbing through the die, you can get the bits of card stuck onto the acetate and then peel it off with the image intact.

This is where it gets a bit fiddly! I put the backing paper back in place on the front of the acetate, so I could turn it over to remove the wax paper on the back and attach a piece of dark green card, to contrast with the light green of the die cut.

I then die cut a heart shape in the centre of a 6×6 card blank and fitted the card into it. It will stick beautifully, as all of the green card now has adhesive on it.

Of course, all the dark green areas in the picture are also still sticky (which is not great if you then want to get the card out of the envelope after sending it!). I rubbed Pergamano transparent glitter over the front of the card, which sticks to the adhesive and gives the card a lovely sparkle. I finished it by stamping the sentiment along the side of the heart.

Interestingly, my friend chose this second card to send, rather than the first one that had been my plan, but that leaves me with a spare card for a future occasion. Always useful to have a stash of cards for short notice requests.