Everyone needs a good Tonic now and again!

So yeah, I've had family intervention. After using my Tonic Twisting Veranda and Beautiful Blooms dies over the past few days, my husband says all we need is a monorail and some fireworks and the house would look like Disneyland!

I admit it, I've gone a little overboard on my recent makes. They are large, dimensional and pretty darn cool! The dies are now safely tucked away until my next inspirational moment.  

Now, I've die cut in the past but nothing intricate or fussy. It's mainly been for apertures or the odd leaf or sentiment. But I've recently bought some Tonic die sets - first was the Beautiful Blooms and then Twisting Veranda. 

I'm not gonna lie, it was tough getting to grips with this sort of die cutting. I intentionally stayed away from social media as I needed to figure it out myself and wanted to create something totally me. 

It took nearly 5 hours to get to grips with these dies - but you have to remember I had no idea what I was doing and it's questionable whether I do now ;). 

First up was Santoro Mirabelle. OMG this paper is LUSH! So I set about cutting, sweating, cutting wrong and nearly crying, then began sticking it all together. It looked good but something was missing. Aah, flowers! I turned to the Tonic Beautiful Blooms, Apple Blossom. So I cut cut cut and viola! it looked much better - this enormous easel card was looking pretty good!

Now, the sentiment. What to add, what to add? Nothing seemed to work. My only Tonic sentiment die I bought in a sale was Little Princess and it was perfect! I just couldn't figure out where to stick it so in the end, I made a tiny card blank from the second smallest solid die and stuck it on the front. Now I have somewhere to put my sentiment AND somewhere to write a note! Perfect :)

I wasn't ready to put them away so the next day I made a second easel card with yet another slightly bigger mini card but using the smaller Twisting Veranda dies, the Beautiful Blooms Woodland Aster dies and Craftwork Cards papers - Antiqued and Birds & Blooms Collections. The process was so much easier but I still faffed with the build of the card. One again, I was pleased with the outcome: 

By now I was looking slightly crazed and my family had stopped talking to me. So, I busted out the Hunkydory and with a quick mop of the brow began my third installment. This took me a little longer to formulate as I was limited to the papers I could use and wanted to stick with this set. I decided on Hunkydory Festive Elegance, A Merry Little Christmas and Tonic Sweet Melia Beautiful Blooms dies. I also made two mini card blanks this time - l guess I really was crazed! But it turned out pretty nice.  

So we've made three cards using Tonic Twisting Veranda and Beautiful Blooms - papers from Santoro Mirabelle, Craftwork Cards Chinoiserie and Birds & Blooms, and Hunkydory Festive Elegance, A Merry Little Christmas!

Now, to clear up my EPIC mess! 

Have a brilliant week. 

Love

Jennifer xx