Fun with Dies

3 D Chariot

           Dear friends Dr Sonia here with a special post showcasing some beautiful dies.First of all Thank you so much for the fantastic support you gave for my Flower punch board projects.This month Shalini sent me a beautiful Marianne die set to play with. Marianne designs have such intricate beautiful designs especially in their Petra series and I had never mustered the courage to buy them as these dies spelt “elegance” and elegant projects are not my forte !! [ you will have to rely on Crafters Corner DT Anchal and Arjita for your dose of crafty glamour and elegance!]

Handmade Chariot

But as many  of you know I have a little girl who is very much into princesses and fairy tales and so most of my crafty projects are influenced by her! I used the Marianne Petra Corner Die set  to make this glittery chariot !

Marianne Petra Corner Die Set

This is not a detailed tutorial to make the chariot but just giving you some ideas to get the maximum potential from intricate stencil- emboss style dies such as the Marianne or Spellbinders dies.The set had 5 dies and looked so beautiful !

Marianne Petra Die

But I was disappointed to see the die cut didnt actually wow! Has that happened to you with a new product ?

Marianne Die

Well inks seem to add oomph to any die cut ,so back went the die cut into the die, and inked the diecut using the die like a stencil.

Inking Diecuts

Looks so much better doesnt it!! Ha Ha I did feel foolish and clever at the same time[LOL!!]. Many dies are actually meant to be inked-- so dont hesitate to bring out those inkpads to your dies!

Embossing with Dies as stencil

I just recently got the Ranger heat embossing gun from Crafters Corner and I love how heat embossing can glamorize any project..so of course I had to try heat embossing the intricate die cut. With the die cut still in the die ,run your watermark pen on the design[easier than freehand drawing on the die cut], pour embossing powder,remove the die  and heat with your heat gun.

Heat embossed Die cut

Dont you just love the shimmer and texture! You can directly use the watermark pen or even run the embossing ink pad on the die-cut while its in the die and omit the inking step but if you do that tiny errors will show up more! If you ink and emboss- most errors are hardly noticeable!

Heat embossing a diecut design

The picture above shows the contrast between the  un-embossed and the heat embossed designs

Die cut layering

Well if you want to play with your die cuts even more- how about layering them!

Die cut layering

This set has 2 matching outline dies and I popped up the intricate die cut atop its matching outline using foam tape.

Now on how I made the 3 D Chariot

If you dont plan to buy this particular Marianne design--not to worry-- the purpose of the step by step photos in this post is just to entice you to play with your die cuts and challenge you to maximize how you use your dies!

Just play with your die cuts like you would do with a jigsaw puzzle- rotate and match and also cut a bit here and glue a bit there and you can make entirely new designs!

Die cutting tips

The pic above shows the die cuts from the Marianne Petra corner set I used to make the body of the chariot. As I said Rotate  a little,Cut a little, Glue a little, and you get new designs!

Fun with Dies

I used Spellbinders Asian accents die cuts [again inked and embossed] to make the wheels.You could of course use circles or whatever lovely die cut design you have to serve as wheels

3 D chariot

Joined 2 of the above 2 dimensional chariots using a folded rectangular piece of card stock and also added a roof made using 4 of the 3rd die cut design. I joined 2 Spellbinders Majestic labels 25 die-cuts to make the steps [seen in the earlier photo of the chariot] and the seat within the chariot

3 D diecut chariot

You could use some beautiful eyelets [ I am eyeing some of the new brads and eyelets in Crafter's Corner] on the center of the wheels and connect them with skewer sticks/toothpicks or just roll paper rolls to  form the axles of the wheels!

3D Chariot

         I hope you enjoyed the run through on how you can have so much fun with your dies. I know I have shared fairly simple ideas for the seasoned crafter but hoping it will help at least a teeny bit to many!

And I know many will make some  mind-blowing elegant projects with such beautiful dies!

But for now hope you liked my kiddy inspired 3 D Chariot!Currently the chariot has been hijacked by my daughter and Princess Indumathi from the  Chota Bheem cartoon series is riding in it!!

Supplies
Embossing : Versamark Watermark , Embossing Powders & Ranger Heat Gun
Inking :Distress Inks, Ink Blending tool & Foam
Die Cutting and Dies: Big Shot,Metal plate adapter,Marianne creatable Petra Corners ,Spellbinders majestic Labels 25, Spellbinders Asian Accents