These new dies make decorating for Halloween so easy, it's scary.

Trick: For a great "glittery" result, apply a sheet of adhesive to the front of your colored cardstock before cutting. After die-cutting, peel away the backing and sprinkle a generous amount of glitter onto your shape. Also, I have found that some glitter is more transparent than others, so I like to match my paper to the color of glitter for the best effect.

Trick: A mat board frame is the perfect base for a spooky little sign. I covered my mat board with patterned paper before cutting. After adding my glittered embellishments, I attached a short length of beaded chain as a hanger and added a piece of chandelier glass at the bottom.

This artificial pumpkin had definitely seen better days …

Trick: A coat of orange paint and orange glitter created a great base for this decorated pumpkin. I painted from the bottom up and poured glitter over the top while the paint was still wet. The Candy Corn was glittered using the same adhesive technique as before, but this time I used white chunk glitter on colored paper.

I found this frame at a local discount store. It was gold and silver.

Trick: A coat of flat black paint gave it an oh-so-creepy look. The Scary Tree is a simple black silhouette and if you look real close, you can see the Ghost that is cut out of plastic. The numbers are from the eclips Sassy Serif cartridge.

I recently made a bunch of projects for the recent CHA trade show using the eclips. Here is one of them ...

I like the ability to cut the same shape in several different sizes. Each Butterfly got a different texture. and all were adhered with glue dots, just down the center. Then the wings were pulled up slightly for a dimensional effect. The Butterflies and the title were created with the All Occasions cartridge.

This little summer-themed mini album was created using the Flip-Flop Card die. First, I covered mat board with a variety of pretty paper. Then I cut just one side of the card and used scissors to trim off the top at the crease. Don't limit yourself to paper only. The steel-rule dies will cut LOTS of stuff, like the burlap-covered mat board that I used for the straps of the Flip-Flop. I attached all of the pages together with a metal ring. The cute flower comes with the card die.

Happy summer!

One of the easiest ways to create a card is by using an embossing folder. The Crown Flourish design is one of my favorites. There are several ways to highlight an embossed design. I have created four different versions of the same card to show just how versatile these can be.

The card on the left was embossed on white cardstock, and the design was highlighted by lightly rubbing a colored ink pad over the surface of the card. (Chalk would work well, too.) The card on the right was embossed on colored cardstock and highlighted with white ink. The final card was embossed on a color-core cardstock, then lightly sanded to highlight the design.

I used hot glue to attach the 3-D Flowers to the front of the cards. You can see how to make these Flowers here.

My favorite version of this card is white on white.

Making a good impression has never been easier!

These projects include two of my favorite new dies. First is the Cake Box. This adorable little box is super sturdy once it's assembled, and it is so easy to customize for any theme or occasion. Before die-cutting, cover your mat board with any colored cardstock or patterned paper. I like to use hot glue to assemble the pieces.

Then comes the fun part of decorating the cake. All of the dies in the Celebrations set are designed to work together to help you create custom party favors.

For the top of this cake, I chose one of my "go to" dies, the 3-D Flower. There are two sizes of the Flower on the die. Even though they look complicated, they are as easy as pie to make. Once cut, it is a simple as rolling the paper. For detailed directions you can look here.

I cut my Flowers out of double-sided patterned paper and used hot glue to adhere the moss and Flowers to the top of the Cake.

I also used the Flower to create a matching card.

How sweet is that?

As I continue to get acquainted with our new eclips machine, I love its versatility! The ability to cut a shape teeny tiny to super huge is a total designer's dream. The smallest soccer ball is 1" in diameter, the medium one is 5" and the giant one is 10". Wow.

So whether I'm making a gift card or scrapbook page, I can always cut my shape in the size I need!

What a kick!

I really like a couple of things about this page … besides the cute girls.

First is the surprise pop-up behind the main photo. This 3-D die can be used on both cards and pages. I found two things that are really helpful when creating with this. This die uses rubber bands to make it pop up when the card is opened, and I found that making the card base out of something heavier than cardstock, like chipboard or mat board, keeps the pop up from making the card bulge out. I also like to make a template for trimming photos by die-cutting one of the sections out of something clear, like acrylic. If you don't have acrylic, you can use a chunk of the clear packaging that your die came in.

Second, I like to layer several die-cut flowers together to make dimensional flowers. After cutting the flowers out of cardstock, I wrinkle them up and then smooth them back out and layer them together. My secret ingredient between flower layers is hot glue! Sometimes I will spritz the flowers with a little water while they're wrinkled and smooth them out only part way, but be careful, because the petals will tear right off when wet. Once the paper is dry, I glue the layers together. This is one of my favorite effects, but I don't use it very often because I'm not patient enough to wait for the paper dry!

-Beth

Well, actually, look what the eclips can do.

Every year we make kits for several workshops and make & takes. Sometimes the cutting can be pretty tedious. I needed 200 little red hearts for the kits I am putting together this week. I knew I was going to use the eclips machine to cut the hearts, so I chose the image and size, loaded up the paper and got ready to choose the massive quantity. Then I thought, "What if ...?" and I pressed the "fill" button on the controller.

The eclips cut all of the hearts I needed (and more!) with one press of a button. Bonus points for the cool piece of paper with the negative images!

-Beth

I love re-purposing. One of the main ingredients to these heart-shaped tags is a felted wool sweater. I have felted wool before, but I have to say I was pretty surprised after I put an adult-sized sweater into the washing machine and it came out size 2T. The wool was really, really thick, but my Big Shot handled it with no problem.

I am also loving the giant dictionary I picked up at the thrift store last weekend. Where else can you get 800 pieces of double-sided paper for a buck and change? I adhered red cardstock to the back of the dictionary paper to add stability before using decorative scissors to trim the edges.

I used hot glue to adhere the felt hearts to the paper hearts and embellished with some fancy stuff from my "stash."

Happy Heart Day!

Beth