Dies R Us: European Dies

Bringing Home The Christmas Tree!

Hi everyone! Monica of HeartcraftPaper here and today I have a cute gift tag tutorial that's easy to make yet is very detailed. I wanted to make something with a more rustic feel to it and I always felt that images made using watercolor were always more beautiful and rustic. I thought just how beautiful it would be to use a solid die cut and fill it in with watercolor. You don't have to just dies cut your items in a single color. They can be colored in to add plenty of character to your item.

This is exactly what I was thinking when I came across this cute little die cut from Leane Creatief. It's called Car Fiat 500 and I saw the beautiful coloring in it had and it looked like it was done with pigment inks. That's when I figured watercolor would look lovely on this and I gave it go.

One thing about this image is that it is a European die set and the Dies R Us shop gets a shipment of these dies every so often so the best thing to do is sign up for email notifications at the shop to be notified when this large selection comes in.

Supplies:

Car Fiat 500
110 lb. White Cardstock
Canson XL 140 lb. Watercolor Paper
Watercolors
Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide

Gathered Twigs Distress Oxide
Black Soot Distress Oxide
White Gelly Roll Pen
Glitter Bow
Liquid Glue

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Below you have a full step-by-step tutorial on making the tag using water colors. I just find it a great idea to add colors to die cuts to really bring them to life.

A work in progress!

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Thank you all for visiting. I do hope that you have enjoyed this project and that you head on over to my YouTube channel and subscribe for more video tutorials. Thanks for all your love and support.

Don't forget to come join in the fun at the Dies R Us Challenge Blog. There's a new challenge theme offered on the 1st and 15th of each month and one lucky randomly drawn winner will receive a gift voucher prize to the Dies R Us Store.  

 For your convenience, all the important Dies R Us links are provided below.

click below for:

FRIENDS OF DIES R US PINTEREST PAGE

Cardinals are the heralds of the Christmas season.

Hi everyone and welcome! Monica of HeartcraftPaper and this season I'm sharing with you a wonderful watercolor card with you. Most usually I use stamps for my watercoloring, but today I decided to use an embossing folder to create the image that I would be using to color in. During the Dies R Us European sale, I found a beautiful embossing folder of a lovely bird on a branch and that just so happens to be what it's called too.

Supplies

Bird On Branch Embossing Folder
Snow Embossing Folder
Never Ending Oval Dies
Watercolors
White Gelly Roll Pen
White Cardstock
Red Glitter Cardstock

Canson Watercolor paper
Black Ribbon
Holly Leave and Berry Pick
Liquid Glue
Foam Tape
1/8" Double Sided tape
A2 Card base

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To begin, die cut the red glitter paper using the oval die that will fit on an A2 card size. Use the second nesting die down to cut out an oval out of Canson watercolor paper. Using the Bird On Branch embossing folder, pass the watercolor paper through your die cutting machine. You will see that with watercolor paper the embossing to me seems more pronounced.

Using any watercolors you may have, add color to the back ground first. Next you will work the branches and then the bird. Remember to allow for drying time between applications of color so that the color does not spread and bleed. Once you have finished painting in your image and it's all dry, use a white Gelly pen to add some snow to the branches and specks floating around in the air.

Trim down a piece of white cardstock to 4.25" x 5.5" and using the snow embossing folder, pass this through your die cutting machine. Add a stretch of ribbon to the left side of the card adhering it down with double sided tape. Then using another piece of ribbon tie a simple not on the front upper left side. **Tip** Using this method will allow you to slide the bow up or down to adjust to your image piece. Adhere this piece down onto the front of the A2 card base.

With the card base ready, prepare the image by layering it on top of the red glitter paper with liquid glue. Then adhere the hole thing down onto the card base. If you need to you can slide the not up a little to make space for the image.

The final touch is this beautiful holly and berry piece. I used a piece of foam tape to secure this embellishment to the bottom lower right corner of the card. and now your done.

Now your done! this is what the final piece will look like. This was fairly simple card to make with only a few steps to for such a beautiful card. There truly is beauty in simplicity.

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Thank you all for stopping by to see another HeartcraftPaper creation. I do hope that you take the time to sign up for email notifications of new blog posts as well as visiting my YouTube channel.

XOXO - HeartcraftPaper