Aloha, all!
Yesterday was a day when I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my card-making. There were some products – both new and old – on my work table that I was anxious to try out. And I also needed to start making some birthday cards (I've already missed two this month!). What to do, what to do. So I finally did what I often tell people who ask me how to get started when they don't know what to do. "Just start doing SOMETHING!"
Before I go into what I wanted to try, I have to thank Patty Bennett, one of my favorite Stampin' Up! demonstrators, for the idea to try the various hexagon-shaped products in the Stampin' Up! catalogs together. Thanks, Patty!
So off I went to "do something!" I really wanted to use the brand new Hexagon Hive Thinlits Die that's in the Stampin' Up! 2014 Occasions Catalog. But I wanted to use some Designer Series Paper from that catalog, too; I started with Watercolor Wonder DSP. I was sure that somehow I could get them to work together. Once I saw my finished card, I decided that what I had created was, um, "a bit of a mess." I almost threw it away instantly. But then I thought that, if I slept on things, it might look better in the morning. Uh-uh. It looked as bad to me this morning as it did last night.
BUT I had this idea in my head and I really did want it to work. And that's how I got to today's card.
The technique that I wanted to practice was to get the Thinlit Die to cut out letters for me that I could then adhere to a piece of paper or cardstock that I'd embossed with the Honeycomb Embossing Folder. That it did beautifully, once I figured out how I might tackle this task.
I began by stamping my letters from the ABC-123 Outline Alphabet and Numbers Stamp Set with Versamark on one of the Tangerine Tango sheets of Retro Fresh Designer Series Paper, then embossed the letters with White Stampin' Emboss Powder. I used the Hexagon Punch to punch each of the letters out. (I could have used any punch, but the Hexagon Punch was on my work table with all my other hexagonal products.) After that, I arranged each of the pieces behind one of the hexagons on the Thinlit that I'd placed on the Magnetic Platform, adjusting them so that the letters were fairly well centered.
I used another piece of the same Designer Series Paper, with a Very Vanilla Background for my card front, embossing it with the Honeycomb Embossing Folder. I trimmed the paper to 5-1/4" wide by 4" high, and then I adhered each of the 5 die-cut letters on top of the embossed hexagons, using Stampin' Dimensionals.
For the bottom part of the card I stamped "Birthday" from a stamp in the Bring on the Cake Stamp Set, using a Tangerine Tango Stampin' Write Marker so that the word Happy on the stamp would not show up. Then I filled each of the letters in, using just a bit of Daffodil Delight to fill in the flame that serves as the dot on the 'i' in "Birthday." Once I finished that layer, I matted it with just a little bit of the same Tangerine Tango sheet that I used for the letters in "Happy."
The final touch was to add some Coastal Cabana 3/8" Ruffle Stretch Trim on the top and bottom of the "Birthday Layer." Compared to the disaster of the original card, this one was definitely a keeper. Even thought I had some Candy Dots and other embellishments on my work table, I decided to leave everything just as it was and call it, "Done!"
My "Lesson Learned" was not to give up on an idea just because it doesn't work the first time. I was ready to say I just totally didn't like the technique that I was going to try the first time I saw it. But now that I've tried it again, the technique of being able to punch images with the Hexagon Hive Thinlit Die and use them to enhance an image I've embossed with the Hexagon Embossing Folder is in my repertoire and I'll probably do it again!
