Hello Joy Clair fans!  Betsy on the blog today with a card made with one of my favorite stamp sets:  “Extraordinary”!  This is such a beautiful digital stamp set and today I’ll be showing you how to step up your digital stamping with die cuts!   I first printed my card and sentiment onto white card stock.

My image measures about 2 3/4″ tall.  I took a rectangle die and die cut the image of the boots and flowers first.  Then, using a banner die, I die cut the sentiment.  I wanted to color my image with Copic Markers.  I wasn’t sure what colors to go for, but I love blue and brown together.

I wanted the flowers to be that cornflower blue…I love that shade so much!

I colored the flowers and leaves first, using simple blends.  Then I colored the boots.

I was pleased with how well these colors worked together. For Copic colors I used the following:  B60, B63, BV04, YG06, YG63, E31, E33, E35, E37, E59.  I dotted each of the flower centers with a gold glitter pen.  I cut the sentiment down to be the same width as the main panel.  Next I prepared my die cuts.  I took about 6 different small multi-leaved branch stems and die cut them from some green marbled paper.  I cut a quite a few.

There was one die I favored  over the others and that is what I ended up using the most of.  It was a branch that had 3 distinct sections of smaller leaves – great for cutting down.  I next prepared my background panel.  I used a piercing die and some cornflower blue card stock.

I cut a black card stock panel just slightly bigger to mount this blue panel on.  Then I adhered that to a white A2 size top folding card base.  Using adhesive foam, I first adhered my colored panel onto the card.  I cut up some of the leaves and placed them along the bottom edge.  Then, using the same kind of adhesive foam, I  adhered my sentiment panel.

Then I continued with the leaves around the whole 2 panels.   I cut them and tucked them and placed them at different angles until the image looked full.  To highlight the gold glitter pen in the middle of the flowers I added some tiny gold foil pearls and that finished my card for today!

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope I’ve inspired you to dig out those dies and step up your digital stamping!

Betsy