Dreaming of Die-Cutting

Hello all!  It's time for the new challenge theme over at A Vintage Journey.

This fortnight our host is the fabulous Annie of Curious & Crafty Treasures and she'd like to see Dies and Distress.

As usual there's lots of lovely inspiration from my fabulous team mates, so do check it out.

After a double blue/green frenzy we're back to an autumnal feel with this die-cutting creation, or neutrals at least in any case.

If you missed my blue/green PaperArtsy make or the Artistic Stamper doodly tags, I'd love it if you had a chance to check them out - it's been a crazy 24 hours here at Words and Pictures!













I started with my favourite corrugated cardboard and a plan to use the first die I ever bought which was the Tim Holtz Vintage Lace Decorative Strip Die (and it's probably my most-used too).













I gave the cardboard a rough coat of Picket Fence Distress Paint and stamped the lovely vintage PostCard stamp several times in Potting Soil Archival.










The focal image for the hanging is one of the Found Relatives pictures from Idea-ology.















I used an On the Edge die on the photo, top and bottom.











The Ornate border on the photo echoes one of the other dies I chose to work with, the fabulous Frameworks Lattice - a new favourite.











I grabbed a background tag I had hanging around from my Memento Mori discards to cut the Frameworks.  I stamped the small version of the ornate alphabet included in the Merchantile stamp set before cutting the Lattice.














I also cut some of the same pattern out of plain book pages which I inked with Gathered Twigs and Walnut Stain.











The final piece of the puzzle in die-cutting terms is the addition of the Tattered Doily On the Edge die, cut from the same tag with the fancy lettering on it.

That's been layered up with the die-cut photo and the Vintage Lace, all nice and inky round the edges of course.












You'll see I added some more of the real leaves - like on the Autumn Flowerings hanging, a sort of companion piece to this one - and gave them a dusting of Picket Fence DP too.











All the metal pieces have also been slightly altered using the Picket Fence - giving a dusty aged look.

There's the clock...

A Muse Token, positioned carefully over some of the latticework pieces...














And the ornate keyhole, again echoing the Lattice shapes...












The little number brad... and next to each of the metal pieces I glued a few industrial brads as extra decoration.

I think they add a nice extra metallic touch.













The sentiment is stamped in Potting Soil over a whitewashed book page, and mounted over the photo on foam pads.











Finally, a bit of linen ribbon will do the job when I come to hang this up somewhere.

I hope that gives you some ideas for using your Dies and Distress products.  

You'll find lots more inspiration from my amazing team-mates over at A Vintage Journey, as well as the exact details of Annie's challenge to you.  I do hope you'll be able to come and play over the next fortnight.

Thanks so much for dropping in - hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt













Since my blue/green PaperArtsy project only had a few hours to itself on the blog, I'm just going to do another quick plug for it here... After all that work, I'd hate it to get lost in the chaos!

Hop now or forever hold your peace!!