DieCember with Simon Says Stamp

 Hi blogging friends I am absolutely thrilled and excited to share with you that I was recently invited by Simon Says Stamp to join their designer family. I am delighted that today I am a part of their 2025 DieCember event. 

If you are not familiar with this, Simon Says Stamp holds an annual month long celebration of dies and die-cutting during December. This is their 13th anniversary. You can check the whole release out here .

I was sent the gorgeous new Splendid Snowflakes (S1098) die set to play with. It is available on the website here. There are 3 different size snowflakes in this set which has beautiful detailing too. 

I made 5 cards with the set. I will be sharing my other 4 cards over on my Instagram account in the coming days, so if you would like to see those too please come on over and follow me. My Instagram account is here.

So below is my first "let it snow" Christmas card. The splendid snowflakes really lend themselves to snowy scenes and the 3 different sizes in the set stack up beautifully. 

When my die set arrived I had a play die cutting the snowflakes using white card. Look how pretty and detailed they are!

I thought I would share a couple of process photos of how I made my Let it snow card. I used Tim Holtz distress inks and his moon mask and stencil set to create the moon.

After adding some water and drying off I had this snowy midnight sky background. 

I used Tim's Mr Frosty stamp set for the stamping. 

 I die cut the snowflakes using white glitter card. For the large focal snowflake I layered it up with a blue and white snowflake.  

For a finishing touch I added a blue gem to the centre of each snowflake. 

Here is my finished card once more. 

Do check out the website here and Instagram to see more of their wonderful DieCember release. There will also be a live today at 12 noon ET (5pm UK time) on the Simon Says Stamp YouTube channel. This will be available to watch on catch up too. On Friday (5th) and Saturday (6th) there is also a blog hop with prizes, do check out the blog here. And over on Instagram there will be a Hop on Monday (8th December)

Thanks so much for stopping by and thanks to Simon Says Stamp for this wonderful invitation.  

Happy DieCember and December!

Bye for now,

Jane 

(One last reminder of my Instagram account here if you would like to see my other makes which I will share over the next few days). 

My final Things with Wings special for STAMPlorations

Unbelievable this is the 4th and final installment of my Things with Wings special post for STAMPlorations. 

My first was last October which you can see here and since then I have shared posts in December here and in February here. It is incredible how quickly these months have flown by. 

You can find all the details for this month's post here

For my first project today I decided to make a spring time bird card.

I used the some birds stencil

I wanted to just use the birds in flight so I masked off the bigger birds and used some gold embossing paste on a inky background to create my birds in flight background

Once dry it had this lovely gold translucency.

To finish my card I die cut the trio of birds in gold glitter and black from this set
For the birds

and the make a wish in gold and black. 

Here is my finished card;

with a close up

For my 2nd card I went for a more simple background.
I stamped a design in black and clear embossed using the

Bliss sentiment

and the dragonflies from
winged things

I then got out my distress ink to create a blended background.

I added some glitter layering pen and then glossy accents 

If you leave a comment here and/on the store blog you could also be the lucky randomly chosen winner of a $15 gift code to spend on the website. One winner will be chosen from all the comments left on the special April Things with wings posts.

Remember if you would like to buy any of the products I have used from the website just enter my code STAMPGIRLJANE at the checkout to get 20% off on top of any current discount being offered.This is a direct link to the web site

I have really enjoyed making all my projects for my Things with wings specials and I really hope that you enjoyed them too. 

Thank you so all much for all your lovely comments. 

Stay safe.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Dies for hearts

No my post title is not meant to make you think you need to leave this world for hearts! Far from it, but it involves 2 different  types of dies.
As you know I use a lot of dies in my paper crafting but did you know that you can also create your own dies to press form shapes in silversmithing?

Die forming has been the new project since my silversmithing class returned in January after the Christmas break. The first thing I had to decide on was what shape to design. I decided that a really useful shape is the good old heart. I wanted to work in copper and brass as sheet silver is so expensive and just for experimenting these cheaper metals are good to experiment with.

I sketched a heart onto paper and cut it out in 5mm copper and perspex.

My photos are not the best as they are taken with my phone but you can get the idea.
I stuck the 2 pieces together and had to carefully file the "die" until I had very smooth surfaces.
This took a few weeks.......
Fast forward.
Once the die was made I was able to have a play with my metals and textures. A "sandwich" of acrylic, metal and the die is put into a press.
This is the press....it is huge!

 The press is wound down by hand and the  force created presses the sheet metal through the die.

Above are 2 shapes I created in brass and copper with the die. I textured the copper using textile in the rolling mill.

I love this textured copper.

I was able to invert or evert the heart depending on the effect I wanted.
I had great fun playing and below are a few more pieces.

I have some plans to turn these into pendants. I also plan to try soldering 2 hearts together to create a 3D pendant too. Our class is on half term for 2 weeks so I will keep you posted with what I make when we go back,

So my card today has to involves die cut hearts doesn't it. It's another case of when 2 crafts collide I think.

This is a Valentine's day card I made for my Etsy shop which is for sale here.

It's very CAS for me but I liked this simple design with the striking colours. Red, black and white is such a great colour combination.

Die cuts can be so effective. After coming up with my design I just stamped and embossed a simple Clearly Besotted sentiment in red and added a ribbon.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Pixie's snippets playground  3/3 #214  I used a snippet of black card for my die cut and a snippet of ribbon.
Whimsy stamps with love
Crafting from the heart  2/3 anything goes
Try it on Tuesday  2/5 a fine romance
Artistic Inspirations 2/3 anything goes/twist of Valentine
Noor UK  love
The Ribbon Girl  3/3 with love
Papercreator must be love
The Artistic stamper love my sentiment is stamped
The Craft Barn  triplets I have used 3 colours, red, white and black
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday  have a heart
Creative Inspirations  hugs and kisses
Creative Corner  1/3 Valentine's/love
That's Crafty  1/3 love

Thanks for visiting today and I hope you have your Valentine's cards bought or made....only one more weekend to sort things out. I can't show the one I have made my Hb yet as it's a Guest design post for one of my favourite card challenges...you'll have to wait until 19 Feb to see it.

Enjoy the upcoming weekend, we are off to Southampton to catch up with Daisy and Co...I can't wait.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x