More than meets the eye!

Many thanks to Brenda Walton for cheering up an otherwise grey and rain swept day in my little corner of Wales. She only went and designed another fabulous set of dies for us all to play with!

The title of this weeks blog refers to the set in question which is a Thinlits die set named Lanterns and is made up of 23 separate dies.

The reason I titled the post 'more than meets the eye' is because the first time I saw it as a set of line drawings I was somewhat less than enthusiastic. That all changed when I received a sample and realised what a wonderfully versatile set this is with bags of creative potential.

I set out to make a card using only the lanterns but I thought 'No! that doesn't tell the whole story' so I couldn't resist making another couple of cards to show off some of the other dies too.

For this card I have assembled a selection of shades of grey Bazzill card together with some ivory and metallic silver card. I chose a floral stamp from one of Tim Holtz' Stampers Anonymous sets and stamped two rectangles of card using grey ink before die-cutting my two lanterns.... two of six I might add!

Next, I used a Hougie Board to add embossed stripes to the lanterns. you can also use a ribbler if you have one (wish I could find mine!)

I die-cut two tassels and two of the lantern centres before attaching them to the rear of the lantern using adhesive foam pads.

Next, I cut the three separate elements needed to create the flower from silver and two shades of grey before using a stylus to give them a little dimension.

I cut a rectangle of light grey card and embossed it using the trellis folder (one of my faves!). I used the same floral stamp to add detail to the face of my base card and attached the embossed card along with a strip of mid grey card and a rectangle of ivory card. I stamped the word 'enjoy' onto card and cropped it using one of my beloved circle dies before attaching a strip of darker grey card to the rear using an adhesive foam pad. Finally,I die-cut the tiny butterfly from silver card.

Here is the finished card assembled using a combination of PVA glue, double-sided tape and adhesive foam pads. As you can see I also attached loops of natural twine to the top of the lanterns and added a smattering of adhesive gems and pearls.

There is so much more that you can do with the lanterns alone as I will probably prove in the coming weeks (I've just sent for some Chinese calligraphy stamps!)

As well as all those cool lanterns there is a three tier cake and stand in the set, not to mention the lovely heart. I used quite a contemporary colour palette for this card 

 Last but not least there is a gorgeous little cupcake frosting and case die. A suitable stamp and a hand full of diamante gems later........

It IS okay to be different! I have to remind myself every morning when I wake up!