Spellbinders has a collection of monthly clubs (subscription boxes).  There’s a Card Kit of the Month club (which I’ll address in another post), a Large Die of the Month & a Small Die of the Month, a Clear Stamp of the Month, and a Glimmer Hot Foil of the Month, and an Amazing Paper Grace (APG)  Die of the Month.

The Card Kit and the APG Die are kind of their own things, but sometimes one or more of the other dies, the stamps, and/or the Glimmer kit will have some elements that work well together.  This month, the Large Die, Small Die, and Clear Stamp all coordinate exceptionally well.

What Are These Kits?

Okay, so…these Spellbinders kits are basically subscription boxes.  You can order one or a combination.  Up until recently you could also pause your subscription any time you wanted.  The pause option has been done away with, but you can cancel and restart any time you want, so it’s totally possible to just get one die/stamp/whatever for one month and not actually have a “subscription,” per se.  (While you’re subscribed, you also get some extra perks, like 10% off of other purchases on the Spellbinders site.)

The Clear Stamp is pretty much just what it sounds like: it’s a clear stamp set.  The overall size is roughly 4×6″.  The Small Die set is around the same size (slightly larger), and the Large Die set is more like 5 or 6 by 8 or 9 overall.  As far as I’m aware, even the large die never includes a die wider than 6 inches, so they all fit through the Platinum 6.

The APG Die set is another set of dies specific to the Amazing Paper Grace line, usually really frilly and detailed.

The Glimmer set is designed for hot foiling with the Glimmer Hot Foil system.  (I don’t have the Glimmer system, so I didn’t get the Glimmer kit, and I didn’t get the APG Die, either.)

June 2021 Dies & Stamps

Like I said, this month’s Large Die, Small Die, and Clear Stamp clubs all coordinate really well.  The June 2021 Large Die of the Month is called Colorblock Circles & Stripes.  The Small Die of the Month is Colorblock Landscape.  And the Clear Stamp of the Month is Circles of Sunshine.

Colorblock Circles & Stripes consists of great basics.  There’s a set of three strips, 8.5″ long, one 1/4″ wide, one 1/2″ wide, and one 3/4″ wide.  Obviously these can be used to make stripes or accent strips.  They can also be used to create strips for weaving, or all in one color, side-by-side to create a beaded-board paneling look.

This set also includes a wavy line — kind of an S-curve sort of thing — with an overall length of 5.25″.  (As in you could fit it on a 5.25″ card, not measured along the curve.)  A set of concentric circles, a sort of half-concentric-circle/rainbows-in-a-circle sort of thing, and three circular sentiments (happy birthday, for you, thank you) are also included.  They “nest” within the curves of the wavy line and have a diameter of essentially 1.25″.  The sentiments are “drop-ins,” which means you can use them with or without the outer circle.

Colorblock Landscape is a unique set.  The largest die in the set cuts out a set of 5 landscape layers.  These can be used for a desert scene; sand dunes; hills, river, and mountains; snow drifts, etc.  I think you could use them as waves on a stormy sea.  I even saw someone use parts of this for a sunset.  It’s definitely more versatile than it seems at first blush.  It also has a circle that can form a sun or moon for the landscape (also essentially 1.25″, but just a smidge smaller than the one in the other set), a sun ray/wedge piece, a tiny cactus, and a couple of leafy, curved foliage pieces.  The cactus is about 1.25″ tall.

The cactus can also sort of “nest” together with other cacti, in rows:

There are two downsides to this set, in my opinion.  1) I wish the landscape layers were separate pieces, because if you want your layers to be different colors, it doesn’t seem very efficient.  2) Although my experience with Spellbinders dies to this point has been that they’re consistently excellent quality and cut well, my Colorblock Landscape set has some issues.  The small dies in the set all cut just fine.  But the sun ray has a bit along a long edge that doesn’t like to cut, and there are several spots in the landscape layers that don’t cut well.

The Clear Stamp set for June, Circles of Sunshine, extends the usefulness of both die sets considerably.

Four round or rounded sentiments fit perfectly into the circles in the die sets.  Another three or so sentiments will also fit, although they don’t “fill up” the circles.  There are also two circular “scenes” sized to fit (and styled to coordinate), along with a half-circle rising sun.  The sun obviously can also coordinate with the landscapes, in general.  Three different stamps include groups of birds in flight, which can be used together or separately to add detail to landscapes.  Another three sentiments, a couple small flowers, and a group of “sparkles” round out the set.

Sentiments include:

Wish you were here
May every sunrise hold more promise
Life is a circle: the end of one journey is the beginning of another
Thank you for being my sunshine every day
Shine bright
Glow on girl
You are my sunshine
May every sunset bring peace
Sending you sunshine
You’re my favorite person on earth
A family is a circle of friends that love you

So as you can see, there are themes here of circles, sunshine, sunrises & sunsets.

My Projects

There are plenty of projects already circulating the web using these die sets in both expected and unexpected ways.  I went with “expected” for the Colorblock Landscape and less-expected for the Colorblock Circles & Stripes.

♬ “Almost heaven, West[ern] Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River…” ♬

I opted to make my landscape grasslands and hills with a river running through it, with hazy mountains in the background. I popped the front couple of grass pieces up on foam tape so the river would recede a little, then put the next layer on a thinner layer of foam so that overall the more distant layers were increasingly flat.

They’re layered atop a piece of white cardstock ink blended with Simon Hurley Clear Skies.

With the Colorblock Circles & Stripes, I chose to use the negative space.  I had a piece of yellow cardstock from which I’d cut out the wavy piece, along with circles nested within the curves, so I put that piece on my white card front.  Then I inlaid a “happy birthday” piece (in navy), and concentric circles in navy blue, light blue, and white.  (The simplest way to inlay the circles is to put the glue on the card, then start putting the circles in place starting from the outermost one.)

I also used the larger dies from the set to cut out faux “boards.” I had a whole pad of brown cardstock on hand.  I’m not sure where it came from, but I honestly think it’s kind of ugly and don’t know why I’d ever need a whole pad of it.  I ran a piece through the Platinum 6 in a wood-grain embossing folder (I had to do this in two passes because the folder was smaller than my paper), then rubbed the raised area with Forest Moss Distress Ink.  (That just happened to be the brown I had around.)

Then I used the “stripes” die to cut that paper into strips.  These bits of “lumber” go well with the tools I die cut for my Fathers Day cards.