It's Friday Die-Day!

Hello friends,

So here's an idea - I was thinking that Fridays should really be renamed Die-Day!

On certain Fridays I will feature one die, it may be just showing you how it looks when 

cut and embossed on a little project or a technique, occasionally I will do videos too - time permitting! :)

I know that when I receive die templates I immediately see how they cut and emboss, 

I am always a little surprised with the difference between the die and the die cut, 

sometimes it's more delicate, smaller etc and it certainly sparks off ideas.

It may be that you've been thinking about buying a die and would like to see it in more detail - 

you could email me and ask me to feature the one that is next on your shopping list!    

Good idea?  

To get the ball rolling today I will feature -

Bitty Blossoms

This is one of Donna Salazar's designs (oh yes, love her!)
You get three flowers and four leaves (2 are joined)
Here they are cut and embossed and I'm stencilling through.

 Once they are popped out of their templates look at the difference stencilling makes.

Now here is just two ways of curling these little lovelies.

First off it is useful if you have some foam, the foam that your brads come on is perfect.
Also something round - like the end of a pen, I'm using the end of my craft knife.

Take each petal and push down quite firmly, don't worry if you think it is ruining the paper - it's fine!
Here you can see the difference it makes, it is starting to curl inwards.

Once you have done this take the outer edge and start to curl like a coil - once you reach the middle that little circle is its base.  Curl quite tightly and when you get to the end let go -
it uncurls a little to find its natural shape.

Another technique is to start the same, pushing down into your foam for the first few petals but then flip your flower over and push down from the reverse side.

This means when you start to curl, the middle section is inwards but the outer edge will spray open.

Here it is before curling.

And once curled.  

Also, see the leaves, the double one that is connected, it is so you can just pinch that middle section to converge the leaves together - you can see a tiny fold line in the middle stem....

This is how it looks once folded.

This is just the basics, you can tweak the flowers and leaves, ink them, use different card stock, papers and just generally play around until you are happy with your creation.

I love them..nearly as much as butterflies!

I hope you've enjoyed my little photo demo on this Die-Day! 

Take care friends and have a wonderful weekend.