Making A Scene Masterclass

You can create some beautiful and striking cards by using your dies and stamps to create a ’window’ effect to a scene behind a shaped aperture. These cards are created by inking and stamping images on one piece of card and using a shaped aperture from a negative die-cut over the top to frame and highlight the scene or images.

Have a look through you die collection and I am sure you will find a variety of dies which you can use to create some unique aperture shapes. You will need dies which will leave a large enough negative aperture to allow you create a scene behind. Nesting dies such as hearts are an obvious choice, but you can also create some fancy apertures using more intricate dies, or using two dies together such as the flower and leaf in the Best Wishes card.

To create the scenes behind the negative die-cut shapes place the die you are using onto a piece of white card with the cutting edge down. Draw around the die approximately 1cm from the outer edge to give you the area to add the inking and stamping. You can colour the area with Distress inks and add stamped images over the top, or you can stamp scenes and colour them. Clear stamps work well for this because you can see where you are stamping within the area which will be seen through the die-cut aperture. At this stage it may look rather messy, but once the die-cut piece is placed over the top the scene you have created will really pop.

On a second piece of card hold the die in place with low-tack tape and die-cut to give you the aperture piece. Save the die-cut pieces to use as embellishments or for other projects. Using 3D foam on the back of the die-cut piece gives dimension and depth to the scene but make sure to use some small pieces around all of the die-cut shape. Place this over the inked and stamped piece and see your scene come to life.

Give this a go and see what you can create!