An easter tutorial and news of a show - see red at bottom of post!

Good morning all and a happy easter to you! I hope you all have a wonderful time doing whatever it is you'll be doing. If you've got some crafting time - stay tuned - I have a tutorial for you on how to make that card shape I showed you earlier on in the week. If you've forgotten - here's a new card I made from this tutorial card.

Okay - so the question is - how did I make the card shape? I followed the steps below:

1.This is the Marianne die I used

 2. And below is the part of the die needed. I cut a piece of folded card as wide as the die and placed the die at the top of the card as shown. You can make your card whatever length you want.

 3. Using the Grand calibur I added the die and card to the cutting plates but only the top portion that I wanted to cut - the bottom half of the die and the rest of the card remained sticking out of the cutting plates. Then I ran the die and card through.

 4. This is the result.

 5. At this point I cut the parts of the back of the card that weren't actually cut but were impressed enough to show the outline.

 6. Then, with the die repositioned on to the front of the card I added the unfolded card to the baseplate and put the embossing plate and mat above and ran it through the machine again. it would be a good idea to tape the die in position so that it doesn't move during embossing.

 7. Once I had done this I had to poke out all the little cut bits - but the whole die was now embossed.

 Here's the final card before I decorated it as above.

Hope that helps those of you that were wondering - I think its neat and will start looking at my dies differently now - so thanks so much to that lady in Manchester who was demonstrating this technique!

I'd like to enter my easter card into the following challenges:

Spring Card Makers Challengedocraftsblog: Do Crafts
Crafty Ribbonscraftyribbonschallenge: AG with ribbons
Simon Sayssimonsaysstampschallenge: Anything goes
Sisterhood of craftersthesisterhoodofcrafters: Easter/Spring

Thanks for visitng today and have yourselves a fabulous long weekend!

 Next weekend - 6th April to be precise - there's going to be a craft show in Doncaster. Crafty Sentiments will be there with all of their new releases - stamps, stamp sets and dies and the old ones too! The show takes place at Doncaster Deaf Academy on Leger Way - which is opposite the racecourse. The postcode is DN26AY for those of you with sat navs. The show is on from 10am until 3.30pm. Its a chance to get the new releases before they go on the website on the 10th April. and

Crafty Hugs

Rachel xx