Golden Sympathy
Dream Valley Challenge #297 Using Dies
Good day, fellow crafters. Today’s challenge is a unique one for me, to create a card using cutting dies as your only method of crafting your card’s main elements. Typically, I combine different techniques in my creations, but this time, I wanted to explore the full potential of cutting dies. The end result surpassed my expectations, with the captivating contrast of gold accents against the soft background hues. Admittedly, capturing the card's true beauty proved difficult due to the reflective qualities of the gold cardstock. However, to showcase its distinctive features, I have included an additional angle in the gallery at the bottom of this page. I genuinely hope you enjoy this card as much as I enjoyed creating it.
In contemplating how I wanted to craft this card, I decided to go through my stash of larger dies to see if I could find one that I could feature that had plenty of detail to it that would allow it to stand out on its own. After careful consideration, I decided that the Altenew Antique Blossoms die, depicted on the left, perfectly aligned with my vision for the primary element for this card. This particular die offers some fantastic versatility, it allows for a simple and clean outlined image, as showcased in this card as well as alternatively, it provides an opportunity to incorporate various colors as inlays. I appreciate the versatility of this die and have already planned to utilize it in future projects.
For the background of this card, I decided that I would begin with an ink blend of colors that would work well with the metallic gold cardstock I planned to use. I settled on the blend you see in the card after combining Distress Oxide in the colors of Picked Raspberry, Dusty Concord, and Prize Ribbon for a different project and I felt that would look fantastic with this one. After ink blending I set the background aside to dry.
For the next step, I employed the metallic gold card stock mentioned earlier, along with the Altenew Antique Blossoms die and the Simon Says Stamp With Sympathy die, as shown on the right, to cut out the elements for this challenge. I have a fondness for this brand of metallic cardstock, although it tends to be slightly thicker. As a result, I typically run it through the die-cutting machine multiple times to ensure a clean cut. Naturally, I refrain from removing the cardstock to check until I have completed all the necessary passes, as I want to maintain the alignment of the die. After they were cut I positioned them where I wanted them to check the fit.
The next step was to assemble the pieces. I trimmed the background to its final dimensions as well as the metallic gold cardstock mat and then adhered them to a pre-cut A2 white card base. I then adhered my focal element and sentiment in place. Even though this card had a lot of visual appeal I felt it lacked a bit of dimension so I opted to incorporate some 4mm flat-backed clear droplets from Kat Scrappiness. This helped to give the flowers a fresh watered look plus I really like how the background color is pulled up through the droplet so that they appear to be the same color as the background.
