A Wreath for Summer

 Today I'm sharing a tutorial for the summer wreath card I made using Eileen Hull's newly released Wreath and Snowflake Thinlit Dies.   I wanted to show that you can use a seasonal die and make a non-seasonal project with it.   

I made a summertime wreath card.

Here are the dies that come with the set.

First I die cut the wreath base and 4 cuts each of the 2 leaf dies and the berry die in the set.  I cut them out of watercolor paper as I wanted to watercolor the pieces.

I used 3 different greens for the foliage pieces and  tan and blue for the berry stems.

Here they are all painted. I just brushed lightly over them, leaving some small open spaces with no paint.

I let them dry (they dried quickly but you can use a heat tool to speed it up just don't blow them all off your table!).  Then I added a little detail with like-color watercolor pencils.  It makes them look more dimensional.

I laid down the wreath, then added one of each kind of stem, just gluing the bottom of each one , tucking the stem of  the next one under the previous stem.  I glued some stems turning to the outside of the wreath and some turning to the inside of the wreath - so the circle isn't clearly defined and actually looks like a square!

Just gluing the base of each stem makes the tops stick up and add more dimension to the wreath.

I die cut the card base and adhered the wreath using foam dots.  I die cut the friend from Eileen's older Floral Arch and Words die set, attaching it to the wreath at the f and d and put a small piece of a foam dot under the e in the middle to hold it up.  I also added a black clay heart to dot the eye - also up on a tiny bit of foam dot!

My card is 3 3/4" square.

So take a look at your seasonal dies and think of ways to get more mileage out of them by using them for another time of year!    

Eileen will have posts on her blog every Wednesday for the month of July showing how her Design Teams use her new Chapter 3 Dies for all different seasons!  

Paper:  Water Color Paper - Canson Cold Press

Accessories:  Wreath and Snowflake Thinlit Dies, Floral Arch and Words Thinlit dies - Eileen Hull/Sizzix,  Noted: Scalloped Square Die - PTI, Winsor Newton Water Color Paints, Prismacolor Water Color Pencils - Dark Green, True Green, Copenhagen, Sunburst Yellow, black fun foam, foam dots, Black Tuxedo Clay Heart - Honey Bee Stamps.