Project of the week: out of the box die cutting

Today is my day to share a Project of The Week over on The House That Stamps Built blog.  I'm going to give you a quick little tutorial on how to do the out of the box die cutting technique; something that I find myself using quite a bit.  Here's what you need for this technique:

• an image (I used "Feline Friendly"
• ink
• a die
• scissors
• pencil
• washi tape or similar low tack tape (I forgot to put it in the picture)

 This technique works really well for large images (ones that are too big to fit in your die) and needs to have a part or parts of the image that hangs outside the width of the die.

 Line up the die around your image where you want it and lightly trace along both sides of the die around the part of the image that falls outside of the die.  For my card, it is along the sides of the die just around the cat's tail.  In the next photo you can see where I drew the lines:

 Take your scissors, and carefully cut along the IMAGE lines just until you have cut in far enough to be able to pop the piece up over your die (you'll see what I mean in the next photo).  I drew light arrow lines to show how far in I cut.

 Slide your die under the cut out part of the image until it lines up between the two lines you traced before and tape it in place so it doesn't move.  You can see how the cat's tail is up on top of the die.

 Run it through your die cutting machine like normal.  You can see that my die cut is smaller than the die; I ran it through a second time after adjusting it because I didn't want all that white space at the bottom.

 Carefully and thoroughly erase any pencil lines and smooth the cut out portion down so you can't see the cuts.

 And here is my finished card:

I just love how his little tail is hanging out over the edge; I really think it adds to the cuteness.  For my sentiment I used "Friends Make . . .".  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps: Repeat Impressions "Feline Friendly" and "Friends Make . . . "
Dies: Spellbinders "A2 Matting Basics A" rectangles; MFT "Four Corners"; Sweet n' Sassy Stamps heart die

Challenges:
Cards Galore--anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper--anything goes with patterned paper
The Paper Nest Dolls #6--anything goes
Dies R Us #76--layers
SheepSki Designs #4--square cards
Incy Wincy--friends forever
Penny's Challenge #336--anything goes
Crafty Gals #130--anything goes
Word Art Wednesday #290--anything goes with uplifting sentiment
Crafty Creations #345--anything goes
Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2--sketch

Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Wonderful Wednesday--anything goes
Cardz TV #5--anything goes
Pink Gem Challenge #198--animals