I had another one of those craft mornings today. You know, start off with a plan and end up doing something completely different. I’d planned to make a birthday card using die-cut leaves and flowers. I ended up making a masculine card using the eclipse technique, which I’d seen but never tried before.
ECLIPSE TECHNIQUE PART 1
Basically, in the eclipse technique you die cut a shape from a background. Then you stick the shape back over the hole but lifted up, for example on Stampin’ Dimensionals.
Unfortunately I always find these really difficult to see, and if they’re words, to read. So on my card I tweaked the process a little.
Using the Happy Birthday Thinlit with my Big Shot and Magnetic Platform I die cut the Happy Birthday three times. One from a tree rings piece from the Wood Textures 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper Stack, and two from Thick Very Vanilla Card.
To make the assembly easier each piece had been backed with some Multipurpose Adhesive Sheet. I removed the backing from one of the Very Vanilla pieces and fixed it directly on top of the other Very Vanilla piece. Then I removed the backing from the tree rings piece and attached that to the stacked pieces, but this time slightly offset.
THE BACKGROUND
Using my Stampin’ Trimmer I cut and scored a piece of Thick Very Vanilla Card. I folded the card along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder to create the card base. Then using Mulitpurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I attached a greyish piece from the Wood Textures DSP Stack to the front.
Next I took the negative section of the tree rings paper and removed the backing from the adhesive sheet. Then I fixed it to the front of the card base.
ECLIPSE TECHNIQUE PART 2
At this point I realised that I should have been more careful when I removed all the little bits from the tree rings piece. No matter, hopefully I could still find them all, it would just take a little longer to assemble.
To start I fixed the layered words onto the front of the card where the Very Vanilla bottom layer would fit perfectly inside the negative space. Then all I needed to do was fill in the remaining gaps using the small ‘waste’ pieces of the tree rings DSP.
TIP – If you decide to do this don’t simply dump all the ‘waste’ pieces out of the die-cut in a heap on your desk like I did. Take a piece of card and place the die, cut side down, onto it. Then use a paper piercing tool (or something similar) to carefully poke out the ‘waste’ pieces. Once you’ve released all the ‘waste’ pieces, lift the die up and all the little pieces will be left behind in their original places. From there it’s a much easier job to pick up each individual piece to insert into another die-cut. Does that make sense?
FINISHING TOUCHES
With the eclipse technique portion of the project complete I could get to work on the last few details.
First I wrapped a length of Very Vanilla Solid Baker’s Twine around the front of the card and tied it in a simple bow.
Next using Early Espresso ink I stamped ‘to you’ from the Tabs For Everything Stamp Set onto a strip of Very Vanilla Card. I trimmed the strip and cut a V in one end using Paper Snips. Then the piece was added to the card front with Stampin’ Dimensionals.
For the inside of the card I took a layer of Very Vanilla Card and added a strip of the tree rings DSP to the tight-hand edge with liquid glue. More liquid glue fixed the layer inside the card base.
Finally, I attached the remaining piece of the tree rings design to the flap on a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope. Using Paper Snips I cut around the edge of the flap and I was done.
An accidental masculine card (as many of mine are) with a tweaked eclipse technique. I’m not unhappy with it. What do you think?
If you’re looking for other masculine card designs, here’s some of my previous posts.
Cowboy Boots and Country Livin’
Alternatively you can search my project gallery for masculine cards using the categories displayed at the top. Click on a project you like and it will open so you can take a closer look. Then you can click on the link to the blog post where that project is featured.
Oh, I was excited when I looked at it, Tracy! What a super masculine card. I made my 1st eclipse cards last year, before Christmas, but made 5 layers all told; concluded one less layer would’ve been sufficient. I do like the idea of off-setting them a bit, which is a common thing done when die-cutting a sentiment, just for the sake of achieving a bit of contrast … they’re fun to make, but as you say, you must keep track of all the small bits for the “recovery & assembly process” 😊 — I think you’ve done a brilliant job!! TFS again.
Thank you Geraldine. Off-setting the piece just a little makes it easier to read, and as you say, can provide some nice contrast.