Creative Tip of the Day: Make Your Words Part of the Design

A word or phrase die can do more than add a greeting to your card. Try treating it as an important part of the design itself. Give it dimension, coordinate it with your background, or build your card around the message.

All three of today's projects were created by STAMPgirl Maria several years ago. Maria has been part of the STAMPlorations design team since 2014, and I've always loved her style and the creative ways she uses STAMPlorations products. Her word and phrase die projects are a perfect example of how a simple sentiment can become an integral part of the card design.

Here are three of Maria's projects from the STAMPlorations archives that show how a die-cut phrase can become much more than an afterthought.

Let Your Sentiment Take Center Stage

Maria created three cards featuring the Make a Wish phrase die, pairing the sentiment with the Doodled Birthday Cake Cover Plate in three different ways. 

On the first card, she dry embossed the cover plate onto white cardstock and added a stacked, rainbow-inked Make a Wish sentiment. 

On her second card, she created a soft pastel rainbow background over a heat-embossed cover plate design and placed the phrase prominently over it. 

For the third card, she used a craft-foam version of the cover plate as a stamp and created a colorful stamped background with Distress Oxides.

The backgrounds change, but the Make a Wish phrase remains an important focal point in each design. It's a good reminder that a strong sentiment can be the star of the card, rather than something you squeeze in at the end.

Coordinate Your Die Cut With Your Colors

For this card, Maria used the Grateful Heart phrase die with the Art Flowers 1 stencil. She chose warm, autumnal tones for the ink-blended background and carried that same palette into the stacked Grateful Heart die cut.

The result is a sentiment that feels like it belongs with the rest of the card instead of looking like a separate element added afterward. When you repeat colors between your background and your die-cut phrase, you can make the whole design feel more cohesive.

Build a Design Around the Words

For this card, Maria started by playing with phrase dies and a palette of colors created with alcohol markers. She colored strips of paper and arranged them into a bold striped design, then combined the stripes with a stenciled background and the Thankful Every Day phrase die. Here, the phrase isn't simply sitting at the bottom of the card as a greeting. It becomes part of the graphic composition and works together with the colorful strips to create the focal point.

Make Your Words Work Harder

Maria's projects are a great reminder that word and phrase dies don't have to be an afterthought. They can be the focal point, help establish the color palette, or become part of the overall graphic design.

The next time you reach for a word or phrase die, think about how you can make the sentiment influence your card from the very beginning. Make it the focal point. Pull colors from your background into the die cut. Build a pattern or composition that helps emphasize the words.

Your sentiment can say something meaningful and look good doing it.

And if you're ready to add some new words and phrases to your die collection, now is a great time to shop. All CUTplorations dies are currently 15% off, including our word and phrase dies.

Check out the CUTplorations dies in the STAMPlorations store and save 15% while the promotion lasts.