I was putting away product the other day in my craft room, and came across The Greetery’s Shapely Hearts Die set. I seriously hadn’t touched this die set in almost two years! So I pulled the set out, and picked Hot Stuff Sentiments stamp set to use as my sentiments.

When I’m working with dies, I like to die-cut a lot of whatever die I’m using, and I LOVE to make backgrounds with the die cuts. So with these hearts, I spent about an hour die-cutting colored card stock and white card stock. I made several styles of backgrounds, using the hearts in different ways. With the colored card stock hearts, I made a background of hearts on pink card stock. I also made a frame of hearts, using black hearts under the colored card stock hears for depth and shadows. I love how black card stock can really brightened cards up.

Another idea for using dies is die-cutting a panel several times, repositioning the dies after each run through the die-cut machine. That’s what I did with an inked panel. I used oxide inks to ink-blend a background, then used the two smaller hearts to die-cut the panel. It took maybe 5 minutes to die-cut the panel. Once finished, I had a panel that looked like I die-cut it with a cover plate, and I also had beautiful inked hearts. I was able to make two cards out of the inked panel, and I finished the cards with two more sentiments.

Slimline cards are also a great way to let your die cuts shine. I made a simple arrangement of hearts that I inked with Destress Oxide inks. I used glue to attach the bottom hearts, and foam squares to attach the top hearts. I finished with one last Hot Stuff Sentiment.

I made another background design with inked hearts, and backed the panel with black card stock. I love how this simple step really elevates the card, and makes the black sentiment POP!

The last Idea I’m sharing today is using your dies to make stencils. I have done this quite often, and it really helps me stretch my supplies.

I made two stencils with the smaller heart dies, and used light inks to stencil the bigger hearts onto a panel. I kept the larger hearts really light so they would be the perfect background for the smaller hearts. I stenciled the smaller hearts with darker inks, and with a heavier hand. I absolutely love how this background turned out.

You can watch how I made all of these backgrounds HERE:

There’s so many options for backgrounds when it comes to die-cuts. If there’s a way I can stretch my supplies, I’m doing it!

That’s all that I have for today, thanks so much for stopping by!

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