CUT AWAY

 I love discovering new things to share with you, my readers!

Recently, I was perusing a book, The Rubber Stamper's Bible, by Francoise Read. Although this book is sort of an oldie, 2005, it is definitely a goodie, with lots of great ideas in it.

Long about page 74 in this book is a little article, called Cut Away. In this technique, part of the main design is cut away from the rest of the card through the use of a craft knife.

Below is a photo of the card I made loosely 

following the instructions published in the article:

For my card, I used a stamp from Stampin' Up! of a few years ago. It wasn't around very long, but I've always thought it was so charming, so I decided to hang onto mine forever and ever. If you look closely, you will notice that the image is generally in the shape of a maple leaf!

By perching my card on the ledge of this easel, 

you can see a little better the cut away piece.

To begin my process, I cut a piece of Whisper White cardstock to 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", the traditional size for a card. I lightly marked off the halfway point, at 4 1/4". Once I had my center line, I inked up the stamp with Fresh Fig ink and stamped it so part of the stamp ended up above the line, as shown below:

I am not very talented when it comes to using a craft knife, much rather preferring to use a pair of scissors for any intricate cutting I need to do. However, in this case, where the entire piece of cardstock needs to be cleanly and crisply cut, without any discard, a craft knife is essential.

OK, so once I had my image stamped, I used my Simply Scored tool to score the pencil lines on either side of the stamping. I then carefully trimmed out the portion of the image that fell above the halfway point.

Once the cutting was done, I folded the card on the score lines. The trimmed out piece stands up straight over the fold line.

Unfortunately, once I got to this point, I did not like the size of the card. So, after taking off a bit here and a bit there, I came up with a piece of cardstock that measures 7 1/2" x 4 3/4". Folded, the card itself measures 3 1/4" x 4 3/4", but with the portion that extends beyond the fold, the measurement is 4 1/4" x 4 3/4". I wanted it to fit nicely into an A2 sized envelope.

The photo below shows the finished card in the open position. 

Notice how the trimmed out portion of the image lies nicely within the open space.

Shown at an odd angle that focuses on the side and back of the card, 

you can see where I trimmed out the top of my stamped image.

If a creator doesn't care for the cut-out space, it would be very easy to cut two pieces of Whisper White cardstock that measure 3 1/4" x 4 3/4" and glue one inside the card and one on the back of the card to hide the cut-out area. I decided to leave mine as is, without the two added pieces, so I could show you exactly how it looks.

One more view that shows how the card looks when it's in its display position:

Just a close-up of the stamping and subsequent cutting away, 

as well as the score line.

To complete the card, I cut a 1 1/2" x 4 3/4" piece of Whisper White cardstock, and, after stamping off first, added the dotty area from the Touches of Texture stamp set (on page 153). Since I'd wanted to add a sentiment over this area, I didn't want the sentiment to get "lost" among all the dots. Thus, my reason for stamping off first.

I then mounted this piece onto a 1 3/4" x 4 3/4" piece of Fresh Fig cardstock, then added this whole piece to the card front.

So, what do you think of the Cut Away technique? Do you anticipate ever giving it a try? One word of advice: make sure you have a very sharp blade in your craft knife!

Cut

Away

Smiles.