winnie & walter new release :: true faceted heart cutaways

I'm really excited to share a couple of projects with you today that I made as a Special Guest during the Winnie & Walter Belated 2nd Birthday Bash.  I met co-owner Shay at CHA last month and I can't even tell you how many times she made me blush (in a highly complimentary way)!  She is incredibly thoughtful and sweet and I was thrilled when she invited me to guest during their big festivities.  I have already written a couple of blog posts for them earlier this month and played along with some of the challenges they had as part of the celebration.  There's a good chance that I'll be sharing the posts here in March, but if you don't want to wait until then, you can check them out here and here.

And today, because W&W has been revealing their new releases this week, I've got a couple projects that I made with the awesome True Faceted Heart Cutaways (dies).  I have to tell you first that every product I used from W&W is top quality.  The stamps are so nice to use (high quality photopolymer) and the resulting images are crisp.  The same can be said for the dies--they call them Cutaways over there ;)--the cuts are precise and clean.  If you've never checked Winnie & Walter out, please do; you won't be disappointed!

I made 2 projects with the cutaways and for both, I cut my hearts out of paper-thin wood.  I wish I had had the forethought to take a photo of it, but I bought it last year at Joann in a 12x12 sheet.  The manufacturer is ARC Crafts and this color is White Birch.  I wanted to use something a little different and while I dug deep through all of my specialty papers and even considered some fabric, I found this wood sheet that I had been saving and knew right away this was it.  (Here's a snap of my second project where you can see the paper up close.)

I cut my first heart from the wood and then punched out all of the tiny triangles and other shapes (they come out easily and cleanly).  I spread a thin layer of decoupage glue over the heart, which I then covered in this deep pink/fuchsia glitter.  After letting it dry, I sprayed it with a light coat of hairspray, which works as a sealer.  While it doesn't prevent every flake of glitter from coming off, it definitely helps.

I tucked a small gift for a friend into a 4x6 muslin bag and used a couple of other W&W cutaways to assemble the rest of my packaging.  The long and short tags are cut from gold foil printed vellum and glitter paper (both Crate Paper) and cut with the Essentials: Katharine Cutaways.  I trimmed 'love' from the same wood veneer as the heart, but left it untouched otherwise and just looped the drawstring through the L.  I fell a little in love with lavender while putting these projects together so a swatch of torn fabric in that hue is the last bit to finish off the gift.

My second project is a card and this time, I used the faceted heart as well as the piece of wood I cut it from.  I left the facets intact on the die cut heart, just because I liked the way it looked.  Tucked behind the heart on the card is the negative heart shape.  As I was playing around, I layered the two together and decided I'd build my embellishment cluster from that, also sneaking in another vellum Katharine die cut tag.

I used The Big the Bold and the Happy Cutaways again, cutting 'hello' out of the veneer, just under the heart, and using it's negative as well.  A scrap of teal glitter paper draws the eye right to it.  

A couple of my signature clothespins hold the pieces in place and I even made a little flower--in that same lavender fabric as seen in the first project.

Well, Winnie & Walter, thanks for having me along with you this month!  I had a blast and challenged myself to step outside of my comfort zone, which is always a good thing if you're trying to grow.  It will be my pleasure to continue to keep these gorgeous products on repeat for the foreseeable future!  And to my regular followers here at Thurston Post, this is my SIXTH post for February!!  That's a little amazing ;)