Welcome to my crafty blog and another die cut from Claritystamp. I’ve gone for paper piecing with this one, rather than ink blending – I love the way you can get such a different look with these aperture dies just by varying the technique. This card was inspired by the challenge photo at Fusion, and I’ve added in two of the elements from Just Add Ink. In fact, I might have added all three – I’ve used patterned paper and was thinking about layers (the backing paper, die cut & paper piecing, and the additional frame), but the die cut area also gives it a lovely texture against the background as the image is raised.

I started by die cutting the image into the front of a 6×6 card blank. I used a nested square die to cut a piece of Clarity’s ‘Amazonia’ designer card and attached it to the inside of the card front. I thought the light blue area on the paper gave the impression of sky.

I had an offcut from another piece of the ‘Amazonia’ which had deep reds on it. I popped a piece fo ‘Stick It’ adhesive seet on teh back and then positioned it on the die so it mainly cut the birds. I kept the paper in the die and worked from the back, so I could lift out each piece I needed to fill in the birds (I used a pin for this – my fingers are way too fat!) It took a bit of concentrating, as I was piecing in the little bits with the image reversed, but oh so satisfying when done.

I had originally intended to stop here, but deciede that the flowers definitely needed to stand out more. I found another piece fo the ‘Amazonia’ that had blues in it, and again trimmed it to fit over the parts of the die I wanted after putting ‘Stick It’ adhesive sheet on the back. Then I just followed the same process of lifting indivdual pieces out of the die, one at a time, so I could add them into the image. Pretty much like doing a jigsaw puzzle really!

I’d cut a frame from the same piece when I die cut the square to go behind the image, so glued it to the card front. I gave it a quarter turn before attaching it, so the colours didn’t sit exactly aligned to the background, just for a bit more interest.

This is not a technique for when you need a card in a hurry, but it is very satisfying. This little creation will be winging it’s way to one of my friends who’s not been very well recently.