Out of Frame Die Cutting by Alice

Hello! It's Alice here. I have a few readers asking me how I do the out of frame die cutting on my cards and I thought it would be a good idea to share it here. I first learnt this technique from the fabulous Rachel Jacks a couple of years ago and have been using it ever since. Thank you, Rachel! =) Here is how I did mine:

You will need:

• Colored image. I used the beautiful Melinda With Bouquet for my sample.
• Nestibility die of choice. You have to use dies that has opening in the middle to make this work.
• Die cutting machine. Not shown here, but I use a Cuttlebug.
• Pencil & easer.
• A pair of precision scissors.
• Tape.

Starting by placing the die where you think you want to cut the image. You can move the die around and see what looks the best for your image. I tend to avoid having the more delicate parts of the image as the "out of the frame" part since it would make it difficult to cut out later.

I couldn't use both hands in the photo, but in real life you will want to firmly press the die down with one hand and trace using the other. I always trace both the inside and the outside edges of the die where it meets the image. This marks the part of the image that is going to stick out after cutting. It is very important that you trace both the inside and outside of the die on all parts that will be sticking out.

Here is a look after tracing. The outside line means starting this line you do NOT want to cut off any excess paper along the image. The inside line represents how deep you need to cut since that's how far the inside edge of the die will go.

This is the piece after cutting. I trimmed along the image line and cut it a bit farther than the inside line. If you trimmed off any excess between your pencil lines, it would leave a empty spot on your shape. This is because the real cutting line on your die is somewhere between the two marked lines, so please wait until AFTER die cutting to cut off the excess paper.

Erase the pencil lines before inserting the die. Position the die where you planed and I always secure it with a couple of tapes.

After die cutting (and embossing) and off the die. Now you can safely cut off the excess paper.

Here is a finished piece after all is done. It may look scary to try this in the beginning, but after a few practices it would be much better. You may want to stamp an image that you intend to use this technique with and cut a practice piece before you actually use it on your colored image.

Here is a card that I made with the cut out image:

Hope you will give this fun technique a try! =)

Thanks for stopping by!

hugs,

alice