Experiments with new techniques

As I’ve admitted before, my name is Michelle and I am addicted to paper. I have bought two new Christmas paper pads. There may also be two little vintage 6×6 ones which don’t count (essential, honest), as well as a Christmas paper crafting kit, and the papers I bought today.. Oh well, it’s still cheaper than therapy.
Sometimes I find that I love my papers too much, or that I can’t think of ways to use them as backgrounds. I do like using my favourites as the focus of the card, and I showed one of my go to techniques in this blog post. 

I’ve seen lots of examples of other crafters creating 3d sentiments which stand proud but are cut from the main design. I’m sure there’s a real name for this technique, and I’d be really grateful if anyone could enlighten me. 

One of the vintage 6×6 Christmas paper pads which doesn’t count has been sitting on my desk getting a lot of use. It is Christmas Cheer by Simply Creative. I have every intention of a post to show off the papers (they deserve it, gorgeous designs), but I’m yet to photograph them. 

There is a beautiful poinsettia design in the pad. I love poinsettias, they always make an impression. The images on my paper are small. I have used it as a background, but I thought it would be good to really celebrate the paper, and decided to try the 3d sentiment effect.

First, I had to buy a Christmas sentiment which wasn’t fussy. This was no mean feat! I tried eBay and got bored of looking through nos, The Range had lovely fancy styles , so did Hobbycraft. Feeling a bit despondant I went to The Works and struck gold. I left with Dovecraft Christmas Basics, 7 festive sentiment dies which are lovely and simple.

I made my card front by layering up the same paper, using Kraft card as my mats and layers. I die cut merry and Christmas five times each from kraft card and glued them together. I also cut the words from the middle of my card front, and therefore from the layer below as well. I glued the patterned sentiment on top of the kraft stack, then positioned the stack in the negative space. 

The card looked bland, so I stamped and die cut a stag’s head and placed it in the top left hand corner. I think I like this card, I keep looking at it and wondering whether to add more embellishments, but I think overall it needs to be simple.

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