STAINED GLASS GREETINGS

When I discovered this intriguing die on Clearance at a very handsome price, I could not resist adding it to my shopping cart. 

Don't you agree that it is just so interesting and inviting and full of possibilities?

And here is a little closeup of the die, complete with paper residue after being used many many times:

Since the die is not Stampin' Up!, I hesitated to use it in one of my Stamp-In Workshop creations for my participants to make. But, in all honesty, it was just too cool not to share with others. 

And they LOVED it! 

In fact, I provided the black and white base and asked them to choose their own color palette from a stack of cardstock selections. So, basically their card would be completely unique -- their very own! Their cards turned out to be so distinctively wonderful that I took a picture of them holding their cards and posted it to my Facebook page. Unfortunately, it was an unusually small group that day, but, even so, they had lots of fun with the project.

Anyway, another reason I hesitated to have the girls do this project was because, when I was creating my sample, I made such a mess of things. You know what they say: Experience is the best teacher. And, boy, did I learn from my girls!

I'm not sure Spellbinders would agree with my method for putting together a card of this sort. But, I created my base from black cardstock, discarding all the "puzzle pieces" within the grid. I then ran it through my Big Shot three more times, with each of the three colors I had chosen for my design. But this time, I kept the puzzle pieces, as I planned on filling in the grid with my color selections. 

Now, here is where I made my HUGE mistake!

I dumped all of the colored puzzle pieces in a heap in front of my black grid. It truly WAS like putting together a puzzle because I was so disorganized. It took forever to find the needed pieces and complete my card

But, when the girls proceeded on their journeys to making this card, I told them the difficulty I'd had. So they were much more organized, and the process went much more quickly and easily.

This is the card I used as my sample for the workshop:

As I observed the girls putting together their own creations, my fingers itched to go through that pile of prettily colored papers and do another one.

Well, towards the end of the workshop, I had actually chosen three jewel-toned colors to make another of my own. The colors, when put together, looked fairly Christmas-y. So, when I realized that it was JULY, I decided to  . . . you guessed it: Make a CHRISTMAS IN JULY card! 

To proceed more easily with my next creation, I was a bit smarter than my first time. I gently removed the cut-out puzzle pieces from the die in as close to one piece as possible, re-inserting any of the pieces that had fallen out. I then had three separate puzzles within their grids in each of my chosen colors to work from. The difference this small bit of care and organization made was incredible. And I whipped through my first card in minutes!

You see, the first time I made my sample card, you will recall that all three of the colored pieces were in a heap, some right side up, some upside down. A proverbial mess. That had me frustrated right off the bat. Every time I picked up a piece for a specific area of the grid, it turned out to be wrong because it was upside down, or some such nonsense. Thus my hesitation to have my girls create one, much less ME even creating another one.

Anyway, as I previously said, this next one came together crazily wonderfully! I simply chose from the colored pieces IN THEIR OWN GRIDS THAT MATCHED MY BLACK GRID. So easy. When I was finished, I still had those three neat-looking colored puzzles sitting there, just begging for more. 

So, I quickly diecut another black grid and went to work on a third creation, simply using other pieces in this card that had not been used in the first. When the second card came together even more quickly -- and I STILL had lots of puzzle pieces left, I hurried over to my Big Shot and cut ANOTHER black grid base.

And proceeeded to create a THIRD card in the same color combination. I could probably make a fourth card from the leftovers, but I've decided that three was enough. I must admit that I am truly in love, and cannot wait to choose some more color combos!

To complete the Christmas-y effect of the cards, I cut my words with the Christmas Greeting Thinlits (page 192 of the catalog). Since the words resting against such an incredibly busy background did not make them stand out enough, I simply adhered the colored words to Whisper White cardstock and cut them out with a slight white border. Perfect!

These are the three cards I completed with my one color combination:

Please keep watching my blog in the coming weeks. 

I will have a giveaway of your choice of one of these cards to commemorate a special occasion.

Gridlike

Smiles.