Guest Designer- Susie Bentz

TODAY- our first Guest Designer- Susie Bentz!

Hi everyone- so glad to be back from CHA!  I had an idea on the week long drive home… I am very blessed to have lots of creative friends. And I want to share them- their stories, inspiration and work- with you because I know you will love them as much as I do.

So I am really excited to introduce a new feature on the blog- every Friday you will get to meet a fabulous artist and they will share a project and tutorial with you…

I can’t thank Susie enough for all her help at CHA in the Paper Trail booth. Susie lives right down the road from me and it has been such a pleasure to get to know her better. (see another post about her here.) Wait till you to see what a fantastic project Susie has come up with using the new Stitchlits dies!

I’m a papercrafter from Northern Virginia where I live with my husband and three (almost) grown children.  I have been creating all my life and have yet to find a craft I didn’t want to try!  I enjoy all kinds of papercrafting – cardmaking, scrapbooking and altering items for gifts and home décor.  Most recently I have been exploring mixed media and canvases and I am quickly becoming addicted!

I recently joined Eileen at CHA where she turned her vintage trailer into “the place to be” by inviting her talented friends to share demos and Make & Takes.  I had a huge response for this little tag I designed and I promised to share a tutorial for it online.  So here we go!

I used Eileen’s Flowers & Leaves Stitchlits.  This set is really cool because it gives you three options:

• Cut out solid shapes (flowers, leaves, stems)
• Cut out shapes with punched holes for stitching
• Punch holes for stitching the shapes onto cardstock

Here’s a close up of a couple of dies from the set so that you can see the difference. 

You can see that the die on the left is designed to only cut out the small stitching holes within the flower shape. The die on the right, however, will cut out the entire flower and the stitching holes.  So how to use them?

• First I used a die that would just punch the holes for stitching a stem.
• Next I added the flower die, positioned above the stem, and punched more stitching holes.
• Then I used one of the leaf dies to actually cut out a leaf element and proceeded to stitch it onto the tag using green floss and the stitching holes. 

• I cut a flower out of felt, using the die that also created the holes, and stitched it in place.
• I added a bit of washi tape (and yes that is a different flower – but you get the idea!) 
• I finished off the tag using one of the embossing folders Eileen designed for her sewing collection.  I cut a piece of kraft cardstock that was the same height as the tag and twice the width.  After I scored it and folded it in half, I used the Stitched With Love folder and embossed right along the score line. I used Eileen’s Nutmeg ColorBox Blends to highlight the embossing before cutting along the curved edge. The cut edge is adhered to the front left side of the tag and then it wraps around to cover the back side of the tag so you have a nice clean surface for writing a personal note – and it hides all your stitching!)

And here is one more look at the finished tag.  

If you would like to see more of my projects you can check out my blog, My Time to Play, or join me on several social media sites:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Twitter

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you find some time to play today!

Materials for Stitched with Love Tag:

• Sizzix Thinlits Die Set 10 PK – Flowers & Leaf Stitchlits
• Sizzix Textured Impressions Embossing Folders 3 PK – Stitched With Love set
• Clearsnap ColorBox Blends by Eileen Hull – Nutmeg
• Little B Decorative tapes: Leaf, Floral, Love You
• Manila tag, kraft cardstock, embroidery floss, felt

Isn’t this fun? What would you do with these dies? Thanks Susie for a great project!

Join us next week- our Inspiration Team has some delicious eye candy for you! And don’t forget to follow me for lots more ideas and BTS peeks on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter!