Monday, June 17, 2013

Stretching My Dies!

Today I have some graduation cards and a Father Day's card to share.  I always have lots of graduation cards to make but am really feeling that this year will be my last heavy year.  Since Corm graduated this year we have soooooo many of his friends to give cards to but next year will be less and the year after that even less.  So, while I am getting sick of the black/orange/white color combos I think I will miss these cards when I don't need to make them anymore.  Oftentimes, for the girls that I know really, really well I just do their cards in their favorite color combinations.  These two graduation cards have the same die cuts but in the case of the 5" x 5" card I cut the dies down to fit the card and then just put a ribbon over the "seam"  I love this idea.  I can't remember where I saw it....it might have been the JustRite Stampers site but it would have been a 1000 years before I thought of it on my own!  It allows me to really stretch dies....a rectangle also becomes a "square" when needed.  This way I can frame out my various images the way I want to!  I am going to submit the boy's graduation card and the Father's Day card to the Die Cut Diva's men/boys challenge for the month of June.



The first card is for one of my son's friends who has been around since kindergarden and the next card is for a girl.    You can  see how I used the ribbon to cover the seam that was created when I cut the two different dies down to fit a square.  Easy peasy!



This last card is the card that I made for my husband for Father's day.  This was a craaaazy weekend and Father's day ended prematurely with Joe having to leave for India.  I decided that instead of trying to quickly fit a card into the already busy day I would instead slip it into his luggage for him to come across later ;-D

On this card I cut the white colored mat and "stretched" it to fit over the patterned mat. Then I fit the putty colored mat....which is exactly the same size as the white mat over the white mat to cover the break in white mat and also to keep the layers more uniform.  I like it although the colors look soooo blah here on the blog.  In real life they actually look really smart together!

Well, I am off to purchase tires for my son's car....yuck.  I absolutely hate doing chores like this but I will say that we have been getting our tires lately from Costco and they are a DREAM to work with and the prices are so great!  And, my Costco is across from a Kohl's and a Micheal's sooooo I always have something to do while I am waiting for the tires to be mounted!

Take care and enjoy your day,

Be well,
Sheila

7 comments:

Unknown said...

These are Lovely! thanks for Playing along with the DCD.

Dawn T said...

awesome cards Sheila. You've done a fantastic job on these cards.

joy said...

Love these cards, Sheila, as I'm sure the recipients will, too! Great idea to "shorten" the dies to suit your design.

Arlene said...

A great way to use your dies and get more use out of them. I don't know what I did without dies before. LOL

Glad you joined the fun over at Die Cut Divas.

Greta said...

Can't remember where I learned that trick, either, but it sure comes in handy. Love these cards, Sheila--especially the gorgeous color palette of your hubby's card!

Maureen Morton said...

Black and orange was my high school color combo and it is difficult to avoid the Halloween look, but you knocked it with these. I love how you are using these great products and loving the layers! That bow is super-fab and I need to remember that hide the seam trick.These are true masterpieces, Sheila. Enjoy the summer. Thanks for sharing all you do.

Sasha said...

Fabulous cards, Sheila! I love your colour combo on both cards and those are my favourite dies! x