Kill Your Monday Blues with Hils Hints: Embellishments to Die for!

Part 4: Embellishments to Die For

Embellishments – I think very few of us scrapbookers and card-makers can live without them!  

They add that extra touch to all our projects – a spot of colour here, some texture or dimension there.  And, of course, they are FUN!  And great to collect  ;-)

But sometimes they can prove expensive.  

I don’t mind this if I get to keep them in my scrapbooks, but if I’m making a batch of cards for charity, I really don’t want to spend a fortune on them.

This is where your die cuts can really come in handy.  With a bit of creativity they can be magically changed from a flat piece of card, paper or felt into something three-dimensional with a real wow factor!

 

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This flower, for instance, started life as a six petal die and some grunge paper.  I was shown how to do this at a craft show in the UK a couple of years ago.  Rather than re-invent the wheel and try to describe how to make it, I’m going to cheat and give you a link to a YouTube video instead – this will be much easier to follow than written instructions!  

  This video uses the Tim Holtz Tattered Flowers die (one of, if not the, most popular die made by Sizzix), but you can use any six-petal flower die, the technique is pretty much the same.

The flower is perhaps a bit bulky for using inside an album (which is why I’ve not used it yet!), but it would look great adorning the outside of a mini album, or on another type of altered art such as a frame or box.

Another kind of die which you may have seen (and perhaps wondered how to use) are the rolled flower dies, like this one from My Favourite Things, and this one from Sizzix 

I have the Sizzix die, and particularly like to use it with felt to produce gorgeous little felt roses.  

All you have to do once you have cut the die is to roll the paper or material from the outside end of the cut spiral around something thin, like a kebab stick.  Keep rolling until all you are left with is the little rounded end from the middle.  Pop some glue onto this rounded end (a hot glue gun is best for this, other glues can take way too long to dry), and sit the rolled up flower on top.  Voila – it is a 3D flower.  

I like to release the flower just a little, so the rolls aren’t quite so tight, before I stick it to together.  

Again, you can find instructions online which will explain this better – here’s a link to a video on YouTube:  

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Flowers are probably the easiest dies to make stunning embellishments from, but there are plenty more.

Butterflies, for example – simply stick them down along their body only, and gently bend up the wings to make them look much more eye-catching.  Journalling spots can be jazzed up with a bit of layering – use similar shapes or colours to give it a more “designer” look.

As with all techniques, it really is a question of just getting out your supplies and having some fun playing with them.  Don’t worry about doing it the right way or the wrong way – in scrapbooking there is no wrong way!  As long as it looks good to you, that’s all that matters. 

*Please note that the two cards pictured, while made by me, are not my design.  

The butterfly one is one of a number of similar designs that I found on Pinterest.  The Just Saying Hello card is based on a card by Nichol Magouirk.

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HINTS!!! {hot tips}

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Give your die-cut embellishments even more zing by combining them with other embellishments.  Pearls look beautiful nestled in the middle of a rolled rose, and there is not much that can’t be improved with a hint of Stickles glitter glue!