Trend Watch – Turning Negatives into Pretty Positives

I am all over the die cutting trend.  I have at least two machines that I use to help me die cut and I keep them pretty busy.  There are so many fun things you can do with the shapes, letters and expressions.  But like a lot of you, I get kind of bummed when I have to throw away the paper extras or die cut negatives, especially when the paper is so pretty.  Well, I looked around the internet and found that a lot of crafty people have come up with cards and pages out of the negatives created from their die cuts.  So its like getting two crafts in one!  If you are thoughtful when you cut out an image you can plan your second project from the negative.  Take a look at some of what I found.

This baby card is so sweet and simple.  I love how Suze fills in the negative space with another heart and a bow that looks like a little charm necklace.  So cute.

card by Suze Bain photo courtesy of Can’t Stop Crafting

What about stamping in the middle of the negative mounted on another piece of paper?  This is super clever and works really well with the quote bubble die.

card by Lindsay Amrhein photo courtesy of Note to Self

Sam’s card is so awesome.  I love how the leaves fit in each other like a puzzle and the integrated Thanks is another intricate piece of the puzzle.  What a lovely card.

card by Sam Simpson photo courtesy of A Blog by Sam

The peek a boo pink behind the grey works so well.  The layers remain flat but the color combinations with this technique are endless.  As a recent member of the 40 club, I would have loved to get this card for my birthday.

card by Jen Nelson photo courtesy of The Tiny Blue Butterfly

How sweet is this baby card?  I just love how the patterned paper behind the elephant die cut negative makes the elephant perfect for a baby card.

card by Jen Carter photo courtesy of Jen’s Ink Spot

This sweet tag is a Karolyn creation and just the perfect spot of color for a gift.  I love the extra time she spent giving each gift on the tag it own color personality.

tag by Karolyn Loncon photo courtesy of Paper Therapy

Dawn chose to back vellum behind her die cut negative creation.  What a cool look.  The faux pearls are such a great finishing look.

card by Dawn Olchefske photo courtesy of Do Stamping with Dawn

Die cut negatives lend themselves to easy cards sets too. You can whip out a birthday set like Iliana with coordinating colors of stamps and paper and save the butterflies for the envelopes.

card set by Ilina Crouse photo courtesy of Creativity Within

You can mimic the look of the trendy Polaroid by die cutting a square out of a rectangle and framing a word, picture or stamp image like this one.

card by Darlene McCallum photo courtesy of Dreaming about Rubber Stamps

 

Again with my obsession with all things shaker, but these are so cool.  Image on top, lovely sprinklies in the back, this card has is all and you can still use the stitched circle from the middle on another project!  Win win.

card by Nichol Magouirk photo courtesy of Blogged by Nichol Magouirk

What a cool scene Karolyn built around her ship negative.  Isn’t that a fun technique to spill the sequins outside of the shaker portion of the card?

card by Karolyn Loncon photo courtesy of Paper Therapy

This awesome page uses the positives and the negatives and comes out with this great big positive.  This is super beautiful.  The motion created on this page is very inspiring.

page by Stacy Cohen photo courtesy of That’s my Story and I’m Sticking To It

So, I know not too long ago, I wrote an article encouraging you to use up your scraps and I am kind of going back on that by saying save your die cut negatives.  But in my defense, I am still encouraging you to use them as well as to save them!   I hope you have found some cool new ways to incorporate them in your paper projects.

So go ahead… make something pretty.

I have found a few products to continue to inspire you.