Hi I'm here on a Monday just to confuse you as I swapped with Jenny this week and today I'm playing with die cut patterns. Anyone who knows me knows that I love symmetry so I always find it easier to create a symmetrical card design than an asymmetric one. I've tried to do die cut repeat patterns before but haven't always been that successful getting them to line up, until the genius that is Tim Holtz created the perfect system with his "repeat" dies. The first in this line "Retro Repeat" has just been released and we have it in stock along with all Tim's other new Sizzix products (as well as a few other bits from other designers we thought stood out). I've made a couple of cards using these new dies for you today.
For the first card I simply created a full background pattern to pop behind my stamped image strip. The die cuts two rows of the chevrons, but the clever part of the die is that there is a 3rd row of chevrons that doesn't cut but just embosses so it makes it super easy to line up your next row of cuts against them.
I just repeated the pattern the full length of my card stock and stuck it to my white base card. I then created a partially die cut strip of white with one of the new "hey baby" stamps from Stamping Bella, they're all super cute babies in pots but I love a cactus so went with Cactus Baby for my design.
I didn't feel it stood out enough when I popped it on so I stuck it to black card and trimmed around it for an extra layer and some more definition.
For my second card I wanted to play around more with pattern and make that the focal point of the card so I used another one of the dies from Retro Repeat and added a few bits from Atomic Elements over the top.
I die cut the repeat pattern from teal card stock and then trimmed it to be a square on my card. I selected two different diamond shapes from the Atomic set and cut them from lime and popped those in rows to emphasise the similar shapes in the base pattern. To add some drama I added a few spiky black elements and some of the "waste" pieces from the other die cuts layered on top. It's such fun to cut lots of pieces and then layer them on to see what sort of pattern you can build up.
NEWS FROM THE STORE
We have a lot of orders to get through from the weekend so it may be Tuesday before we catch up on shipping. After we're caught up we'll get loading new stock.
This week we expect:
Catch you later
Tara
For the first card I simply created a full background pattern to pop behind my stamped image strip. The die cuts two rows of the chevrons, but the clever part of the die is that there is a 3rd row of chevrons that doesn't cut but just embosses so it makes it super easy to line up your next row of cuts against them.
I just repeated the pattern the full length of my card stock and stuck it to my white base card. I then created a partially die cut strip of white with one of the new "hey baby" stamps from Stamping Bella, they're all super cute babies in pots but I love a cactus so went with Cactus Baby for my design.
I didn't feel it stood out enough when I popped it on so I stuck it to black card and trimmed around it for an extra layer and some more definition.
For my second card I wanted to play around more with pattern and make that the focal point of the card so I used another one of the dies from Retro Repeat and added a few bits from Atomic Elements over the top.
I die cut the repeat pattern from teal card stock and then trimmed it to be a square on my card. I selected two different diamond shapes from the Atomic set and cut them from lime and popped those in rows to emphasise the similar shapes in the base pattern. To add some drama I added a few spiky black elements and some of the "waste" pieces from the other die cuts layered on top. It's such fun to cut lots of pieces and then layer them on to see what sort of pattern you can build up.
NEWS FROM THE STORE
We have a lot of orders to get through from the weekend so it may be Tuesday before we catch up on shipping. After we're caught up we'll get loading new stock.
This week we expect:
- Concord and 9th restocks (yes including kits)
- Lil' Inker Designs new release
- AlteNew's latest releases and restocks
Catch you later
Tara