Trend Watch – Love it right off the page

At first glance, this technique was very intimidating to me.  I still haven’t tried it and it takes patience and precision which are not my strong suits.  It is a good thing that so many of our fellow crafters are so talented in this area so I can show you this cool technique and you can decide for yourself if you have the stuff to take it right to the edge.

I like this idea of stamping or using a die cut and instead of letting the page continue in a standard straight cut, you fussy cut it or partial cut it with a die to make the look seamless like a stamp on one side and like a die cut or sticker on the other.  I am probably not explaining it well so I will show you what I mean with beautiful examples.

In this first card, Sarah does a lovely job masking and stacking her flowers on one side of her card and fussy cutting around them.  You can just see the fuchsia paper she used on the inside of the card.  It only adds to the jagged focus of the petals.  So cool.

card by Sarah Platt photo courtesy of Sazzle Dazzle

Another cool look at the flower on the edge is this card from Karen.  She lifted the flowers in a panel and back it on the card front with grey paper to highlight her blooms and her petals.  What a clever idea to have the card work vertically but to stamp the sentiment horizontally to match the flower garden.

card by Karen Giron photo courtesy of The Sweetest Thing

Anika used both sides of a panel to show off her flowers.  She used a combination of fussy cutting and a paper cutter.  The flowers offer such a nice contrast to the card back when the colors are on top of each other.

card by Anika Kerche photo courtesy of AnniKarten

These next two gorgeous cards look like a photograph or art for your walls but they are really stamps expertly water colored by Marika.  I love the contrast gradient she creates between the blues on the panel she does not cut out.

card by Marika Rahtu photo courtesy of Alte New Blog

And just in case you needed to be even more gobsmacked, check out what she did with her watercolors on these poppies.  She used a paper cutter and fussy cut the poppies out.  These are just stunning.

card by Marika Rahtu photo courtesy of Me and MiniMe Crafting

Sometimes you can create something so lovely but it does not fit in the envelope after all of your creating.  Gina created this card specifically to fit in her envelope.  She used two images to peek over the top of her card.  A how-to video is linked below on her website.

card by Gina K photo courtesy of Gina K Designs

Father’s Day is coming up in the U.S.,  so I didn’t want to forget the guys.  You can use this technique for more than flowers.  Look how cool this ship looks on Narelle’s card.  It looks like it is floating right out of the card.

card by Narelle Farrugia photo courtesy of Stamplicious

The lemons in Marika’s card look so fresh and lovely I had to include it.  She cuts deeply into the card and gets right up to the leaves.  This creates a great space for the cool lime paper in the background to shine through.

card by Marika Lemay photo courtesy of La Magie des etampes

Maile shows us that words can work too.  You don’t have to strictly cut off the whole design.  look how cute her corner is.  She can show off a really bright or busy pattern behind it without it overwhelming the simplicity of the card.

card by Maile.belles@gmail.com photo courtesy of Simply Stamped

By tilting the angle of the paper and floating her hot air balloon.  Mimi looks like she has already taken off on an adventure.  This is such a sweet card and has such great movement.

card by Cathy Fongjoyo photo courtesy of Fong Crafty Place

Rachel combined several techniques to create this awesome card.  She did an inlay with the get well die cut and used several colors to get the cheery sentiment.  She also used a cool angle on the card.  But most relevant for this story is how she used the die to have the cursive letters be the edge of the top layer of her card.  How cool is this effect?

card by Rachel Izakowicz photo courtesy of Seize the Stamp

After looking again at all of these awesome cards, I remain intimidated by this technique but can truly appreciate the hard work and the talent people have to create these masterpieces.  Have you tried this technique?  What do you used to make your edges look good:  fussy cutting, dies, a straight edge, a combo?  I’d love to hear your stories and see what cool things you come up with.

So go ahead… make something pretty.

I found a few things to inspire you (and me) to try.

Prima self healing cutting mat from Scrapbook.com

Tim Holtz Thinlet dies from Scrapbook.com

Magnolias for her stamp set from Altenew

Fiskars fingertip control knife from Scrapbook.com