THREE WAY | FAR-OUT CUT-OUTS

Hello! Today I have a brand new edition of my Three Way Series, where we show you creative ways to use and stretch your stash. Today we are going to be playing with elements, patterned papers, and stamps/rub-ons to expand on the Silhouette "cut-out" look from last week's post. You can find that post HERE.

As I mentioned last week, the "cut" file look on paper pages is everywhere. I didn't want to just stop at using one scallop element border (from last week's tutorial) to create a fun digitally "cut" Silhouette look on our pages, although we are going to be using that as one of our three examples today. I wanted to showcase a bunch of ways we can use our digital stash to get this "cut-out" look.

ONE WAY
First, let's take a look at that scallop mat we made last week and show one way to finish off the page with lots of patterned papers stacked underneath the "cut-out" mat. In my page below, I used three different pages from Love Bug to add color and interest and create a fun "cut-out" look foundation for my photo. This was so easy and came together super fast. This would be an example of using the negative "cut" shape.

TWO WAY
Second, I decided to browse through my papers for interesting patterns to see which would make a good selection for cutting. I found a paper with lots of fun sizes of circles from the Adventure kit. I used the Magic Wand tutorial from last week to select the circles from the background and then "cut" that shape out of a piece of carstock. Now the newly "cut" shape can work as a negative "cut" to delete from another paper or it can be used as a positive "cut". To use it as a positive "cut", simply clip some paper to it as you would create any clipping mask. My page used the circle cut shape in the positive and then I clipped an ombre paper from To Gather to it.  I made the mat a bit smaller than my 12x12 page. I duplicated it and placed one on the left and one on the right side ... with a bit of space for journaling in between. This would be an example of using the positive "cut" shape.

THREE WAY
My third and last example, uses an adorable light bulb rub-on/stamp from Spring Flutters as the basis for my "cut-out" shape. I made enough duplicates of my shape to completely fill one row across my page. Then I duplicated the row 2x, for a total of three rows. The middle row is slightly off center to match up better and fill in the spaces. I knew I just wanted this one to be more like a wide paper mat border running the width of my page, rather than filling up the entire page top to bottom, so I just did 3 rows across. After getting all my light bulb shapes lined up, I merged them onto one layer, and instead of using them as a selection to "cut" another paper, I clipped the cardstock to the shape. This would be an example of using the positive "cut" shape. I added a shadow and then to add even more interest, I created a sticker out of the light bulb rub-on by adding a thin border of white around it. This was placed over a few of the light bulbs for added dimension and interest.

Tip: Cut files that line up to create a border or mat, are usually all touching each other or intersecting at some point so that way they don't fall apart. So to create an "authentic" cut file, make sure (for what ever shape you are using) the pieces all touch each other so there is no disconnect. Technically the bottom part of my light bulb is not connected to its glass counterpart. I could brush a little line on the edges to connect them, but it's such a slight disconnect that I didn't worry about it in this case. But I just wanted to point that out for you to consider as you try your hand at this digitally.

I kept my pages on the softer side to match the soft photo, but image what these digital "cut" files would look like with paint brushed all over and underneath them! And I have to say it was really hard to just stop at making "cut" files with these 3 examples. I have a huge list forming of all the cute things from my digital stash that I want to use make "cut" files on future pages. If you use these tips to make digital "cut" files on your pages, I'd love for you to link us up, so we can see what you make!

Happy scrapping ... and cutting!