Hello there lovelies and welcome to the Eliizabeth Craft Designs December Die Cut challenge! This month the design team members were given a task to create their projects around BACKGROUNDS! I love creating backgrounds to my projects with various tools: stamps, die cut dies, stencils and various media. This time I concentrated on die cut dies, it being a die cut design team challenge. And here are the cards I created:

For the first card I used a strip of Clear Double Sided Adhesive as my starting point. I then die cut two Ornate Snowflake dies from white Soft Finish Cardstock and attached them to the adhesive background. Next I applied Teal Blue Silk Microfine Glitter over the surface (this is one of my fave glitter colors!) and polished the surface with my finger. Thru this procedure the glitter sticks to the surface and get an additional sparckle to it. Next I added some glitter glue here and there onto the snowflakes for additional interest and a half pearl into the middle of each snowflake. Finally I inked a piece of white Soft Finish Cardstock with blue Distress Ink (broken china) and stamped a greeting with the Winter Sentiments clear stamps on top. Some faux stiching around the edges and the card was finished.

For my next card I used one of the new Eizabeth Craft Desings background dies (Geometric Background) – I LOVE this one!!! It is so versatile and works with so many themes. You will be seeing this die showing up very often on my blog :). I first die cut this background pattern from white Soft Finish Cardstock, then removed all the negative pieces and adhered the positive background piece onto a strip of Clear Double Sided Adhesive Sheet. Then I took some Distress Inks in orange, red and green tones out and inked the pieces with these ink tones. After inking them I started to build the background together again by filling the empty areas with the inked pieces. Now this is like puzzle making, so it takes a while, but is so worth it! As you can see there are some glittery parts on the background too, those I left emtpy on purpose to add some Silverado Silk Microfine Glitter onto the areas. I love this shade of silver – it has a warm tone to it and it works great with the traditional Christmas colors!!! Then I went and inked a residue piece of white Soft Finish Cardstock with red and green Distress Ink tones and stamped both a sentiment and a flowers onto those pieces. Now all I needed to do was to fussy cut them, add faux stiching and some Nuvo drops, glitter glue and adhere them to the card. The flowers I adhered with 3D foam to give the card some additional dimention.

On my third card I´ve used the new Kaleidoscope backgrounddie cut die, again with white Soft Finish cardstock. I´ve followed the steps from the first card when creating the background. This time using Dark Mint Silk Microfine Glitter. Next I added a stamped and inked flower and sentiment (see the steps from card two) and decorated the card additionally with some Nuvo drops. This was a fun and easy card to make. So if you need to make plenty, you will be done in no time with this type of a card.

For my last card I used the Geometric backgrond die again. This time, however, I did not remove the pieces. I carefully adhered the whole piece onto the card base with Clear Double Sided Adhesive an then inked the background with Distress Ink (purple, pink and blue). For additional interest I added some cream toned spray ink splatters on top and die cut some hearts from with the new Buttons die cut die to go with the background. A little piece of twine on each button gives them a look of being sewn onto their places, however, they are just adhered to their places with liquid adhesive. Finally I decorated the card with the new “Sentiments 2 – just because” stamp and die cut set. and added some glitter drops and light pink half pearls for additional decoration onto the card. Here are some detail photos of the cards to give you a better look:

I really like the new background dies and they are so much fun to use. Make sure to come back on Thursday, I will be sharing another fun background card idea with a short video tutorial here on my blog and over at Elizabeth Craft Designs blog. Now hop over to the Elizabeth Craft Designs blog to see more background themed projects, created by my design team colleagues!!

Happy crafting and happy holidays,
xxx, Sanna

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