An "Out of the Box" technique tutorial

     I have been on a roller coaster ride for the last week around here.  I had mentioned that my dad was having his second knee replacement surgery.  Well we thought everything was going fine and they sent him home after lunch on Saturday.  Around 7 p.m. he was running a high fever and was advised to go to the Emergency Room.  As anyone who's ever gone to the ER knows, it will NOT be a fast trip.  LOL  Well, the fever became the least of our worries because he went in to an irregular heart rhythm.  They ended up putting him in ICU and he's still there.  The cardio doc says it's nothing life threatening, but obviously needs to be brought under control.  Weekends aren't the best time to get lots of answers from the doctors so hopefully we'll know more today.  I'd appreciate it if you would keep him and us in your prayers.
     One of the comments on my "Watchin' the Flutterby's" card last week was a request to show how to do the Out of the Box technique.  There are lots of great tutorials out there on this technique, but since several of you asked for more tutorials I figured I'd throw my own version into the lot.  This is a very simple technique that can really add a lot of interest to your card.  So here we go.

1.  Supplies.  You'll need your stamped image, a die, scissors, and a pencil.

2.  Place your die, cutting side up, over your image and decide where you'd like it to be.  Placing the die cutting side up will make it a bit easier to judge where your cutting line will fall.

3.  With your pencil, lightly trace along the inside edge of the die next to the parts that will be sticking out.  You can trace along the whole inside circle, but it's not necessary.

4.  Here's what you'll have after the tracing.

5.  Remember, the line you just traced is NOT the cutting line.  You're die will cut a little less than an 1/8" further out from the drawn line.  In the photo you'll see that I penciled in a dotted line roughly an 1/8" out from my first line.  This isn't necessary, but it sure helps you to cut more precisely.  The arrows indicate where you will start cutting in.  It's necessary to cut straight in or you will have a visible cut line in your image edge.

6.  This photo show everywhere that I have determined I will need to cut.

7.  Time to cut!  If you follow the arrow down to the dotted line you should have an invisible cutting line when finished.  Simply continue cutting until you reach your original traced line.  That's as far in as you want or need to go.

8.  Once you've made all your cuts you'll be able to slip the die under the cut outs and line it back up perfectly with your inside pencil marks.  Make sure your die is now cutting side down.

9.  Run the image and die through your cutting machine.

10.  This is what you will end up with and then all you have to do is finish trimming around the hair and paw.

11.  You'll end up with a trimmed, ready to use image with some parts sticking Out of the Box errrr....circle.  hee hee

     Hope this was helpful.  Have a great week!