Using Dies as Stencils for Stitching Templates: Altenew's Layered Floral Cover and Cross Stitch Canvas Dies

Happy Monday!  Is everyone settling into summer?   It is HOT here... I am perfectly content to stay home and get some crafting done until this heat wave passes.  100 degree temps?  NO thank you!

I've been meaning to share this cross stitch card I sent off to a crafty friend for a while.  I wanted to create a card using a cover die as a stencil, and chose Altenew's Layered Floral Cover Die A and their awesome Cross Stitch Canvas die.

After die cutting both panels, I used the layered floral die as a stencil to create the cross stitch pattern.  I colored in the sections using Copic markers.  

I then chose my thread colors and went to stitching!  

I'm not gonna lie... this stitching project is not for the faint of heart.  This took a while.  But it was well worth it.  I finished it with one of my favorite sentiments from Hero Arts and some Pretty Pink Posh sparkling clear sequins.  

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and card!  Have a great start to your week!  

Get Well Soon Cards

Hello!  Unfortunately, in the past week several people in my life have fallen ill or sustained injuries.  As I was looking through my card stash, I realized that I didn’t have any get well cards.  I remembered seeing a beautiful card on Yoonsun Hur’s Instagram page where she had created some floral Band Aids, and from this I took inspiration to create the cards here today.  For each card, I die cut and stamped each Band Aid twice using My Favorite Things’s Band Aid die and Hero Arts’s You’re Beautiful stamps (definitely check out this set… gorgeous floral images coupled with awesome sentiments.  I will be using this one A LOT).   I colored in the images using bright and colorful Copic markers.  I then cut out the square center out of each Band Aid and popped it up using foam tape on top of the duplicate Band Aid to give some dimension.  

I played around with a clean and simple design by putting the Band Aids on a white panel, but it was just too plain and the Band Aids looked lost.  I tried out Jennifer McGuire’s fill-in stamping technique using Simon Says Stamp’s Fog ink, which gave a perfect background.  This Hero Arts set was perfect for this technique… lots of small images gave great impact.  

But not content to leave well-enough alone, I decided to try coloring in the background using really soft Copic markers.  Happy with this, I popped the Band Aids up with more foam tape.  I added Pretty Pink Posh sequins and Honeybee Stamp’s tiny leaves (LOVE these!) to add a little sparkle.  I also went over the little dot images with a glitter Gelly Roll pen.  

Some hand stitching with metallic black thread around the panel and the card was done!  

This card came together quickly, so I decided to make another.  This time, I stamped the background a little darker and didn’t color in the images.  I can’t decide which card I like better… I'd love to hear what you think!