Hi, everyone!  Kelli here today for Tuesday’s Tips & Tricks.  I am going to talk about a couple kinds of dies today.  Right now, dies that coordinate with stamp sets are extremely hot!  As I’ve said a bunch of times before, they are one of my favorite crafty tools at the moment.  Generally, the two most popular types of dies that coordinate with stamps are either solid or open in the center.  The open ones are very easy to line up over an image after you’ve stamped it.  The dies that are solid in the center are easier to cut first and then stamp.  Sometimes companies have no choice but to make a solid die because of center areas, like an alphabet for instance.  If you were to cut out a lowercase e, you’d need the center of the e to cut out so the die has to be solid to hold that part in place.

Here’s a picture of the two side by side.  On the left is a solid center die by Lawn Fawn to coordinate with Quinn’s ABCs.  The die on the right is by Avery Elle and coordinates with their Petals and Stems stamp set.  The individual dies in a set usually come attached to each other as you can see by the alphabet set, but you can easily just bend them and they break apart.

I stamped my flower first and then lined the die up evenly over the top.  Then I just used some Post-It Note tape to hold it in place.  Really any removable tape will work, a lot of people like to use Washi Tape.

Here’s the h from the alphabet set, and since you can’t see through the die, it’s much easier to cut and then stamp.

For my project I stamped a bunch of different shapes from the Avery Elle – Petals and Stems set and die cut them all with the coordinating dies.  I did the same with the ‘hello’ using the Lawn Fawn – Quinn’s ABCs and coordinating dies.  I didn’t want the ‘hello’ to compete too much with the bright flowers so I just made it the same color as the card base.

I finished everything off by stamping some little dots from the Petals and Stems set and outlined the top layer with white gel pen stitch lines.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Have a great day!  🙂

Hello, everyone!  Today instead of an Inspiration Monday I thought I would share some new products with you.  Avery Elle is new to the MarkerPOP.com store and I’m in love!  There are stamp sets with coordinating dies… does it get much better?

I’ll show you some examples below, but you can click HERE to see them all.

Comment below letting us know which set is your favorite!  It’s really hard for me to decide but I think if I had to choose just one set it would be the Petals and Stems.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Have a great day!  🙂