Christmas Tri

Now I know what you are thinking, " Silly old Pete has spelt Tree wrong!" well, I wasn't actually trying to spell 'tree'. I have made three different cards using the new Triplits dies from Stephanie Barnard and the word 'three' in Welsh is Tri so it turns out that I knew what I was doing all along...... for once!

Triplits are wafer thin die sets representing staggering value in the sense that they are incredibly versatile and offer multiple options for those wishing to flex their creative muscles.

 I'm concentrating on the Christmas Trees set which includes no less than 14 separate elements as you can see below.

Sticking with the 'three' theme I'm want to demonstrate how easy they are to use by showing the cards from start to finish in a series of three pictures, so without further ado.......

I used my PC to print my 'Merry Christmas' Greeting onto 3 separate A6 blank white cards, Next, I die-cut the base tree from corrugated card and the other elements from matt gold card which I then lightly distressed with a sanding pad.

I then assembled the tree and attached it to the base card using 3D foam pads. I also tied a length of natural twine around the base.

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For the next card I die-cut the base tree from deep red card and the other elements from patterned paper from a Hobbycraft 6 x 6 paper pad that goes by the name of 'Love Collection'. I attached these separate elements to the base tree using 3D foam pads.

I die-cut the star and attached everything to the base card again using 3D foam pads before decorating the base of the tree using a length of knotted pink ribbon tied in a bow.

For our third card I used the large tree die to cut an aperture through the front of the base card before die-cutting a smaller white tree and a selection of assorted circles from silver mirror card.

I attached a folded rectangle of turquoise card into the base card as my insert and mounted my die-cut white tree onto it through the aperture. I then decorated the tree using the silver die-cut circles and added the die-cut star.

Here are the finished cards seen all together, given time (a luxury in my line of work!) I'm sure I could have gone on to create dozens more even in this restrictive format. I love these clever little die sets and they are one of the first items on my creative Christmas list.

Last week I was in Norway, or to be more exact, the beautiful city of Oslo where I was representing Sizzix as the guests of Global Hobby who are based in Bergen (Stunning place!). They were fabulous hosts and I would like to thank Alf Christian and his team for making me feel so welcome. 

While I was there I thought that I would create few cards with a Norwegian flavour using some of the wicked Papicolor card which they distribute. It folds, cuts, tears and creases so beautifully... I think I'm in love!

The first thing I made was the gift box using the Tim Holtz Pillow Box die which I decorated with torn strips of card replicating the Norwegian national flag. I  then added some die-cut floral elements from the Big Shot Starter Kit.

With the card and tag I took a slightly different approach. I used the flag motif as before but I also wanted to celebrate Norway's proud history for exploration by using a Tim Holtz Texture Fades embossing folder from the Airmail & Compass Set and a few butterfly's die-cut using the Butterfly Frenzy decorative strip die

I really love the colours and it was so much fun to do I hope you like them to?