Doily Envelope Die with Kelly Griglione

Hi Folks!  It's Kelly Griglione here with my final guest design post of the month, I'm super excited to share with you 6 different ways to use the gorgeous Doily Envelope Die!

I must say, out of all the products, I was the most excited to get this die and see what it could do. I'd seen my friend Kate use this die as an envelope for her cards several times and was always impressed at how extra fancy it made her projects look. Which brings me to the first way to use this die:

1) Make an envelope, as it was intended. This envelope was made by running the large plate through the die cutting machine and folding the side flaps inward. There is also a smaller die that allows you to make top and bottom flaps so that the entire card is covered in lacy goodness. I wanted part of the card underneath to show, however, so I elected to just use the side flaps.

Of course this particular card is meant to be hand-delivered, so I can take some liberties with adding dimension to it in the form of the wrapped gold ribbon and the white paper flower.

Having this on top of a present wrapped in kraft paper really eliminates the need for any sort of bows or ribbons I think.

The product notes for this die mention that you may need an extended plate to cut this out since the die is longer than a standard-sized cutting plate. However, I found it was just as easy to cut as much as possible, then shift the die so the uncut portion is on the cutting plate, and send it through the machine again. I didn't need a metal shim to cut the small pieces out, but instead cranked it back and forth 5-6 times to make sure it cut cleanly through the paper, and I was good to go. 

The rest of my ideas focus on using this envelope die to make cards, not envelopes.

2) Make a square doily with the two large flaps. This ended up being the perfect size to rotate and use as a diamond panel on a card, ready for your sentiment or other focal point. Can you guess how I made it?

I lined up the die so that only the area I wanted cut was on the cutting plate. The rest of the die (the straight part) hung past the edge. Then I turned the paper around and did the same thing, taking care to have it hang off the edge of the cutting plate just past where the doily pattern started.

Once the square was cut I started sponging ink on it. I first started doing this on a piece of scratch paper, and quickly realized that it was probably going to make a neat pattern underneath, so I grabbed another card base and did my ink sponging on top of that.

After the ink was all blended, I threaded a needle with some gold thread and started stitching from various places along the middle to the center of the doily. A pearl brad covers the incoming threads gathered in the center.

The bold sentiment is perfect for heat embossing and is from the Art Deco set.

3) Use the doily as a stencil. Remember how I grabbed an extra card base to put underneath the square doily I was brushing ink onto? As an after-thought? Well this is the result! I just love how the doily design covers most of the card.

You can still see a ton of the details that make this doily die so special. I was also happy at how well the embossing of the thick font in the main sentiment (from Medallion Flower Builder) on vellum turned out. So smooth. The secondary sentiment is from Scandinavian Prints.

This adorable lady hanging out on top of the doily design is from Lumberjack Love. I didn't need her antlers on this card so I used a white gel pen to cover up those lines, and a black felt-tip pen to extend the hair lines. Hopefully you don't realize she's had a minor surgery.

I ended up changing the color of her skirt a couple times, by stamping, cutting and coloring an entirely new skirt, which allowed me to build up the layers for a dimensional little lady.

This next card uses a similar technique of covering a portion of the card with the doily to use as a stencil and brush ink through. Since it's a similar idea, I didn't count it as a different way to use the die, so let's consider it a bonus card!

This time I just used one of the large doily flaps on the side of the card. The sponged area makes such a nice home for simple elements to shine.

The sentiment is from Scandinavian Prints, and the tiny bluebird is from Lumberjack Love.

For a finishing touch I wrapped some gold thread behind the sentiment and bird, added two clear sequins, and made some glimmer mist spatters on the "empty" side of the card.

4) Search for other elements in the lace to highlight. Upon closer inspection, I realized there was a cute little butterfly in the middle of the large doily flap. So I cut it out! Doesn't it look like a fancy die you purchased on its own? Two for the price of one : )

I combined sentiments from both Scandinavian Prints and Lumberjack Love.

On the butterfly, I wrapped the body with gold thread in a couple different directions, and then left a trail of thread to show the butterfly's flight path. To make him look more like he's flying I bent both of his wings up.

5) Use the smaller doily flap as a topper for your card. The doily is so intricate that you don't need much else on your card. In this case, I grabbed a leftover piece of watercolor paper from my desk that didn't work out for a different project, and adhered the doily on top. All the holes in the doily make it easy to dangle things, like the star and sequin hanging from the gold thread.

And can we please talk about this gold?!? Oh my! The detailed cuts of this die make the gold foil paper look like a million bucks!

This idea is an easy way to use up leftover panels of inked paper, patterned paper, or even just a plain piece of cardstock.

6) Use two of the smaller doily flaps to create a square panel. Similar to the second card, but instead of creating a larger square with the larger doily flaps, we are creating a smaller square with the smaller doily flaps.

Instead of doing fancy diecuting to turn this into a square made of a single sheet of paper, I just cut two of the flaps. Then I cut the long tabs off each and will mount them together on top of gold glitter paper.

Can you see the sparkle peaking out from the middle a tiny bit? Now that we have a pretty background for the middle of the card, we can start adding embellishments to it.

The bear, trees and tree stump are from Lumberjack Love. I colored and cut them out by hand. The sentiments are from Scandinavian Prints.

I really like how the doily gives these elements a nice home on the card, and it's small enough that you have room on the top and/or bottom for your sentiment.

7) Use the doily to outline any size card. This card was featured in last week's post, so I didn't really count it in my six ways to use the doily die, but thought I'd still mention it since it's different. For this card, I cut the inside panel to be small enough so that once the lace was added it would be a typical A2-sized card. Then I cut off the outside row of the larger doily flap. It was too short to cover the entire long side of my panel, so I used pieces from another doily flap to extend the lace to the end.

Well that's a wrap! Both for my Doily Envelope cards, and for my January guest designing. Sure hope you liked the ideas, and maybe were inspired to look at your supplies in a way they weren't intended to be used!

Many thanks to Miriam and Neat & Tangled for inviting me to share my projects with you this month. It's sure been a treat playing with these wonderful stamps and dies!

Thanks for stopping by!