So I’m back with two cards made from the April die in Claritystamp’s 2020 New Design Club – the countryside aperture. This is one die from the 2020 club that I have actually used previously (makes me feel a bit better!) I blogged it back in September – you can find it in my previous posts as ‘birthday landscape’

Anyway, back to today’s cards. I started the first one by cutting the die into a piece of white card and then snipping around the top half to leave the trees standing free.

I then attached it to a piece of the ‘Antarctica designer card, and cut around it to leave a border. I did it this way round so that I could be sure of getting the die cut positioned exactly where I wanted it on the card, so the trees sit above what looks like a horizon on the card.

I trimmed the remaining card into a strip the same width as the mounted image, and stamped ‘Happy Christmas’ in Barbara’s Handwriting, embossing it with white WOW powder.

I finished by running a black Sharpie around the edge of each card piece, and then mounted them onto a 5×7 card blank. That’s the first of my 2021 Christmas cards done, I think!

For the second card, I cut the die into a piece of brown card, and then trimmed it down to a narrow border using one of the square nesting dies. I stuck it to a piece of the ‘Rainbow River’ designer paper, positioning it so the light was in the sky, and then recut it with the square die. I then mounted it onto a square of white card before attaching the whole image to a 6×6 kraft card blank.

I went back to my trusty ‘Barbara’s handwriting’ stamps for the sentiment, stamping it in Archival ‘potting soil. I’ve realised this week just how much I use this set – it’s definitely one of my favourites!

I have to say, I’ve got much better at using dies recently. It just takes a bit of thought to make them much more versatile.