Good afternoon blog surfers.  Today’s post is all about making dies work for us to create our own aperture cards – easily.

First of all I used a set of decorative square dies, please follow this link for the dies:

decorative square dies

Choose your cardstock that’s going to be the top layer.  Cut this to the size, and then decide where you wish your aperture to sit.  Play with this, as you are not restricted to where you place your aperture, or indeed how many apertures you decide to have.  Cut this out first.

I then embossed it, using one of the Creative Expressions embossing folders – the one I used for my card is called Sparkle Squares, but the one you see here in the picture is Floral Stripes.  Emboss after you have die cut, otherwise you will flatten the embossing:

For the lovely embossing folders follow this link:

floral stripeEmbossing Folders

I love embossing folders.  There’s so many ways to use them, and they are so incredibly easy!

Now I wanted to create a layer of black card to sit inside the aperture.  Cut a piece of black card, larger than your embossed card, so you have a nice border.  Place (not stick) the embossed card on top of the black card, and then place the next smaller die in place.  You will be able to calculate precisely where you need to cut.  Remove the embossed card before cutting the black card:

To confuse everyone, the picture shows the same theory, but I used red card!  Sorry.

Pretty isn’t it.  I’ve inked around the edges slightly to make the embossing pop.

That’s it, aperture with a perfect mount.  Now it’s just playing.  I picked one of my stunning Graphic 45 papers, and used Distress Inks that matched the colours of the image.  

The bottom is just a scrap piece of paper which I’ve cut into random squares, popped onto black card, and layered.  I’ve used glossy accents on the image, the word Adventure and the paper mosaic tiles. If you look closely you may be able to see the corners of the tile has hints of gold.  I added the Cosmic Shimmer PVA into the wet glossy accents – and gently moved it round with a cocktail stick.  You can see the “blob” of PVA in the picture, before I swirled it.

I’ve used some of the Creative Expressions gilding wax on the embossing, and then the Cosmic shimmer gold pear PVA. 

I hope you like it.

When the glossy accents were wet, I sprinkled mica flakes in – just a little, but these will stick when the glossy accents dries

Did you enjoy this step-by-step guide? Tune in to Hochanda every day 24/7 for lots of fun and crafty demonstrations! Watch our programmes live > Hochanda.com

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By admin