Inlaid delicate die cutting tutorial

My head is soooo tired from attending intensive German classes every day. I have 4h every afternoon and I come home completely frustrated after having to figure out the German grammar. I was fluent in French in 6months, although thats probably due to the fact that I was only 25, and I didn’t really have a choice as the French didn’t want to speak English, and I’ve got by in Spanish without having studied it. But after 4 years in Germany, I’m still struggling with the language.

Obviously it doesn’t help my German that everyone here speaks English although it makes life easier of course. We only speak French or English at home, (or Spanish when my mother in law is here) and as the kids are in the International school here, German is not their main language either, (they are actually studying 4 languages at the same time though!), so that doesn’t help with me learning German either! So after (and during) my German courses,  all I want to do when I get home is grab a glass of wine… and look on the bright side of life, which is my  card making!

I made these ombre inlaid die cut cards last night with the gorgeous NBUS die from Pink Fresh Studio and I’ve also done a photo tutorial, so its going to be a photo heavy post, to help you understand the best way to get those delicate dies onto a card. I decided to do this when I spoilt 2 die cuts trying to glue them onto my card!

I started by die cutting a black card stock with the die and removing it completely. I do this so that I don’t have too many layers to cut through later.

I then sponged some distress inks onto a white card stock, the size of the black card stock, and glued it behind the black card stock I had previously die cut from, with the coloured side upwards . Behind this distressed panel, I glued a sheet of double sided adhesive. (Ignore the pink blobs, I always use scraps to do my card!)

I then laid the die into the cut out area of the black card stock and ran it a few times through my Big Shot Plus. You have to move it around in your cutter to make sure that everything gets cut, as the adhesive behind the distressed panel will be hard to cut through. Once I was sure that everything was well cut through. I gently removed the adhesive, making sure that the parts I wanted to leave on my card did not come off too.

I then pressed the whole panel onto my black card base and voila le tour est fait! Its done! Obviously, to avoid all those steps, you can always spray the back of the die cut with glue if you have it, but as its so delicate, if it sticks onto your table, it rips off easily!

This was actually my second card as I didn’t take any pics with the first one.

This is the first one I did. Which colour do you prefer? Let me know in the comments below !

Thanks for stopping by and I hope this tutorial was useful to you.

I’m sharing this over at:

Dies R Us Challenge – Fancy Corners

Happy Little Stampers – Anything Goes with Dies

 Just us Girls – Color week

 Double D Challenges – Sentiment or Quotes