Gnome for Christmas

Hi everyone! My name is Linh and I'm honored and excited to be here as a guest designer. I have a new video up on the CottageCutz YouTube Channel. I've combined several dies from the Strawberry & Bees Collection along with Snowy Gnome Home to create this filmstrip slimline card.

Watch this video to see how I created this card.

Down on the Farm

It's time for another CottageCutz YouTube video and today, I am bringing you something a little different.  Did you know that CottageCutz has scene dies?  Not only are they a quick and easy way to create a card on their own, but if you make a few adjustments, you can add other images to them for an entirely different look.  

That's what I have done today.  I used the "Fall Farm Scene" die and paired it with the "Kitties w/Daisies and "Fresh Strawberry Patch" dies.  I thought it would be fun to keep my scene white (even easier), you certainly can color it in.  I think the pop of color to images I added, really amplifies the sentiment.  What do you think? I hope you'll head over to watch my video to see I used to really make the background stand out even though it's white.

I will leave you with the links to the products I used for easy shopping. Before I go, I want to mention the new release "Baseball and Golf"  which is available now in the Scrapping Cottage.  It's perfect for creating cards for those guys in your life, both big and small, who enjoy sports.

Until next time.... Marla

Pop Up Gatefold Card

Happy Monday friends!  Kris here with a fun and easy card fold that was a first for me, but certainly won't be my last as I had too much fun with this one!   I thought this was perfect for the new Flowers  in the Strawberries & Bees Release!  I hope you will craft along with me in today's tutorial!

Here are a couple of photos to get us started.  It's easier than it looks and you can make it as simple or detailed as you wish. ☺  This is a 6" square card when folded - and yes it does fold flat to put in an envelope!  

CUTTING AND SCORING:

White Cardstock:

(1)  Cut 6" x 12" - score along the 12" side at 3", 6", & 9"

(1)  Picket Fence Slimline

(1)  Stitched Sun, Clouds & Umbrella

(2)  Flowers

(1)  5" x 1/2" - score at 1/2" and 4-1/2" 

(1)  4" x 1/2" - score at 1/2" and 3-1/2"

(1)  2" x 1/2" - score at 1/2" and 1-1/2"

Acetate (or you can opt for green cardstock):

(5 or 6)  11" x 1/2"

Patterned Paper:

 6 pieces (2 of each pattern - 4 on front and 2 on back):  2-3/4" x 5-3/4"

Green Cardstock:

Cut (1) 6-7/8" x 2-1/2" and score 1/2" , 3-7/16", and 6-3/8"

(if you want, you can cut the top of that piece with the grass die)

Cut (2) 2-3/4" x 1-1/2" and cut the top edge with the Hills Slimline Die

Dark Pink Cardstock:

Stitched Sun, Clouds & Umbrella:  Die cut 1

Nested Scallop Circles Set:  Die cut middle size 

Flowers:  Die cut 1 or 2

Yellow Cardstock:

Nested Wacky Stitched Circles Set:  Die cut 2nd smallest

Flowers:  Die cut 1 

Purple, Lavendar, Light Pink, Light Orange Cardstock (or colors of your choice!):

Flowers:  Die cut 1 of each

HOW TO:

1.  Fold and burnish your score lines on card base so that the middle score is a valley fold and the 2 ends are mountain folds.

2.  Adhere your patterned papers to the 4 front panels

3.  Adhere 2 more to the back panels.  Leave the middle panels white for your written (or stamped) message.  (If stamping on it, do it now as it will harder to stamp evenly after your get your flowers on the front side.)

4.  With your green middle piece, miter the top edges of your 1/2" flaps as shown below.  You can choose to cut the top with the grass die, leave it straight, or cut it down so it's not sticking up above the fence.  I trimmed my fence down to fit the width between the flaps of the green layer.

5.  With your 3 pieces of 1/2" white strips, using the edge of a bone folder (or other object) run it between the scored lines (like you would with curling ribbon and scissors) to make the strips curve.  

6.  Flattening out the strip just a enough to attach it, glue the flaps across the middle of the backside of your grass piece so that the middle lines up with the scored line of your grass.

7.  Glue flaps of the next largest strip and place it directly on top of your first strip, flattening it down and repeat for the 3rd strip.  It should look like this when standing up.

8.  Add glue to side flaps of grassy layer and adhere to bottom center of card while it's laying flat.  The sides of your grassy layer should be just short of the score lines on card base.

9.  Color your flowers, adding highlights, etc.  You'll want to color some of those white pieces like the flower centers yellow, and the leaves green etc.  

10.  Glue your pieces together. 

11.  Attach acetate strips to the back of your flowers. For the back (tallest) flowers, I cut my strips to 4-3/4" and added Score Tape to the bottom fronts of the strips.  Then I attached them BEHIND the largest curved strip in my card.

12.  For the rest of my flowers, I held the flower in the placement I wanted, marked it with my thumb and pulled it back out and cut the strip where my thumb was.  Then added Score Tape to the bottom and attached the flowers.  

*** You'll want to alternate which side your put your Score Tape on as some flowers will be attached to the BACK of the curves and some will be attached to the FRONT of the curves.  Continue until the whole section is filled in with flowers.

13.  Adhere your green hills, sun, clouds, umbrella and sentiment pieces as shown below.  

OPTIONAL - create a belly band to help hold the card together!

1.  Cut a white strip 12" x 2-1/2" and wrap it around the middle of your card loosely.  Should not be scored first, or wrapped too tightly as you want to be able to slip it off.  The ends will not quite meet in the middle and that's ok.  

2.  Cut (2) pieces of patterned paper 2-3/4" x 2-1/4" and attach to the front side ends of your strip

3.  Die cut (1) of the largest die from the Nested Scallop Circles Set from blue cardstock.

4.  Die cut (1) of the 2nd largest die from the Nested Wacky Stitched Circles Set from white cardsock.

5.  Attach blue scalloped circle to the wrap, making sure not to add glue to the very center of the circle or you'll glue your belly band to your card!  

6.  Attach white circle to the blue and embellish with another flower.

PRODUCTS I USED:

And here's the whole release!

Thank you so much for being here today!  I hope I've inspired you to try this or something else with this fabby release!  Have a wonderful week :) 

~Kristine

So Berry Sweet Gnome Card

Happy ThursDIE Cottage Cutz Friends!

Melinda here with you on on this Terrific Thursday! I hope you are enjoying your week thus far and if you are state side...hopefully you are beating the heat! Staying in and crafting is always a great refreshing way to relax in these dog days of summer! Today I am sharing a very simple but sweet card I created featuring dies from the new Strawberries and Bees release. 

The focal point of this simply sweet card is the adorable little Strawberry Gnome Girl Die. She is part of the new Strawberries and Bees release. I also used the Berry Phrases Die from the same release. My finished card size is a standard top folding A4 size. The base is white cardstock and then I added a piece of red cardstock. To that, I added a mat of some patterned strawberry paper. I designed the paper and printed it out. I purposely made the strawberries on the paper tiny so they wouldn't be disproportionate to the rest of the composition.

Here's a closeup of that sweet little Strawberry Gnome Girl.

She was very easy to assemble. I just cut all her pieces out in white and then colored them in. That really is my favorite thing to do. Coloring your die pieces is very relaxing. She comes together very easily and is so sweet.

Here's another view of her closeup. Once I assembled her, I added some foam tape to give her a little lift off the mats. I used a pink and red cardstock mat and put those on top of Wacky Stitched mat. I added just a tiny touch of stickles to the centers of her hairbows and the centers of the little flowers on her berry hat.

Here's a closeup of the sweet title and two berries. I did the same with the title pieces. I cut them all out in white and then colored them in. 

Dies I Used

Strawberry Gnome Girl Die

Berry Phrases Die

Nested Wacky Stitch Squares

Here's a look at the super cute new set!

Be sure to check it out and all the amazing creations from the design team!

Also, don't forget to head over to the CottageCutz YouTube channel and check out all of the amazing projects on there. Our video team is doing a wonderful job of filling the channel with all sorts of creative content! You don't want to miss it!

Well that about covers it for today! Until the next time, have a wonderfully craft-die day!

Melinda Beltran

Hello Honey

Hello and Happy Monday CottageCutz friends! 

I'm Kris ~ one of the Guest Designers here, and I've got a sweet & simple card I made for my daughter.  She's clear across the states (I'm in OR and she's in PA - attending grad school) so she's definitely one of my frequent card recipients, and the dies in this Strawberries & Bees Release were perfect for dropping a sweet hello!  

I've used the Bee Phrases and Flowers dies.  And I'll apologize now that I kinda forgot to take pictures along the way, but it's super simple that I think written details will suffice ☺

How I made it:

1.  I cut a piece of thick white cardstock 11" x 4-1/4" and scored it at 5-1/2" to make a top folding card.

2.  I cut a piece of black/white striped paper from my stash at 5-1/4" x 4" and adhered to card base.

3.  I cut a piece of yellow (Daffodil Delight) cardstock at 5" x 4" and adhered to the black/white striped piece so that the stripes appear at top and bottom.

4.  I cut a piece of kraft (Crumb Cake) cardstock at 4-3/4" x 3-3/4".  I mixed a bit of white acrylic paint with water and with a paint brush, I spattered white ink all over and set it aside to dry.

Here's a closer up shot of that.

5.  While the paint was drying, I die-cut and assembled my pieces from the Bee Phrases and Flowers out of white and yellow cardstock.  I then colored the 'Hello', bottom pieces of the bees & wings, the honey spoon, the top layers of the honeycomb, and the flower with Copic markers and assembled them.  

6.  For the dripping honey, I added some liquid pearls in a golden color to the yellow die-cut and let it dry.

6.  Next I adhered my white-spattered cardstock onto the middle of my card front.

7.  I then attached my die-cuts, gluing everything down, except the flower blossoms and bees in which I popped up with foam dots.

8.  I noticed I smudged my white paint spatter just above my honey spoon and it looked bad, so I added a golden bee charm there and another in bottom right corner just to make it look cohesive. 

That's all!  This was fairly quick and simple to put together.  I hope something I've done today inspires you to create with this ADORABLE release!  ☺

PRODUCTS I USED:

Here's the whole awesome release!

    Hope you have a CRAFT-astic week!!

~Kristine