Ornament Cards to “Die” For…

I’ve been having way too much fun with Stampin’ Up!’s ornament stamps and dies (Stampin’ Up and Sizzix.)

The first thing I did was cut various ornaments from a bunch of scrap paper found among the ruins of my desk:

Here’s the first card I made:

When I first tried to cut this die out of self-adhesive glitter paper (Cosmo Cricket) it was a bit of a hot mess — the intricate die did not cut through in some spots. I worked on it with a craft knife but the center was still not clean. So I hid the messy portion behind a decorative piece that comes with the die set! (I also went for an ombre look using Ranger’s Distress Ink Broken China with mediocre success.)

And then I learned that I needed a precision cutting pad for these intricate pieces. And oh, what a difference that made!

Here’s a detailed look and the not-so-clean piece:

(I added some Ranger silver Stickles to the middle piece, which also did not cut cleanly.)

Look how much cleaner it cut using the Sizzix Precision Base Plate:

That pretty background is made using the Stampin’ Up/Sizzix Softly Falling embossing folder. (I edged the embossed piece with Delicata Golden Glitz, but I don’t really like the edging and will leave it off others.) (The Merry Christmas sentiment is from an old Hero Arts set; everything else is from Stampin’ Up!)

Stay tuned for more cards made with this ornament set.