My regular blog readers will know that I love extending the possibilities with my stamp sets. But I don’t think I do it very often with dies. So today I thought I’d show you how I made the retiring Frosted Frames Dies useful all year.

FROSTED FRAMES

This project all started when I used Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to fix some of the Perennial Essence Designer Series Paper to some Very Vanilla Card. Then I cut the layers out using the large fancy die from the Frosted Frames Dies.

The idea was to used the DSP to add colour to the leaves, but after I’d cut it the snowflakes in the die-cut piece just looked wrong. So I decided to to a little surgery and removed them with my Paper Snips. Now I had a pretty frame that didn’t look like it was designed for winter cards at all!

So instead of using once of the Christmas sentiments from the coordinating Frosted Foliage Stamp Set, I pulled out the Good Morning Magnolia Stamp Set. I selected the “Thinking of you” sentiment and with Old Olive ink stamped it onto some Very Vanilla Card.

Then going back to the Frosted Frames Dies I cut out the sentiment using the large stitched die in the set. With that done I attached the sentiment to the leafy piece with more liquid glue.

SUBTLE BACKGROUND

This card was all about the layered sentiment so I didn’t want my card base to distract from that. The problem was plain card just looked, well, boring.

To solve this problem I couldn’t resist pulling out my all-time favourite embossing folder, the Subtle 3D. Then to make sure that the embossing really stood out I decided to add ink to it. I wiped the inside of the folder on one side with a Mint Macaron ink pad. Then I placed a Mint Macaron card base inside it so when it was closed the inked side would be against the front of the card. After embossing the card the ink was pressed into the embossing. Now the embossing was clearer but still subtle, exactly what I needed.

With that done I used Stampin’ Dimensionals to attach my layered and die-cut sentiment to the front of the card.

Completing the project was really quick. I took a layer of Very Vanilla Card and with Old Olive ink stamped the large decorative image from the Good Morning Magnolia Stamp Set towards the top. Then using more liquid glue I fixed this piece on the inside of the card base.

Finally I stamped the same decorative image on the flap of a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope and I was done.

I love how this experiment turned out. I created an interesting masculine / gender neutral “thinking of you” card that could be sent at any time of year. You’d never guess that this all started with the Frosted Frames dies, which were designed for winter projects. Sadly these dies are on the Retiring List and now only available while stocks last. If you haven’t already got these dies, perhaps they’re worth a second look before they sell out?

PRODUCT LIST

UPDATE 2020: The following products have been retired and are no longer available from Stampin’ Up!

• Perennial Essence 12″ x 12″ Designer Series Paper
• Frosted Frames Dies