A turtle and a tutorial

I am sure it seems that I've disappeared into thin air, but don't worry I'm still alive. My line at home was down, so I couldn't do any blogging, but I'm back and I even have a little tutorial to share.

I have been asked by a few people to please explain how to partly cut out an image with your nestabilities. This is by no means the only way of doing this, but it's the way I do it in order to save time.

As you can see from the image below Turtle Tots cowboy has a little hat on and it sits outside of the nestie cut out line. How I do this is what I am going to explain to you today.

1. colour your image like you normally would, then select the nestabilities shape you want to use, I chose the circle.

2. lay the nestie down where you want the image to extend beyond it and draw a line with a pencil outside the nestie (*tip 1: remember that the nestie cuts below that line so you don't want to make it too high or you will get very little of the image outside of the nestie; *tip 2: don't make the pencil line too dark cause you need to erase it again)

3. remove the nestie and use your craft knife or scissors, whichever works best for you, to cut the portion of the image out that is above your pencil line

4. once you have completed step 3 erase your pencil line and take your same nestie, place a part of it behind the portion of your image that will extend beyond the nestie cut out line making sure the nestie is in place where you want the image to be cut out (*tip 3: if you place the nestie in front of the image you will cut it off, so please don't do that, lol)

5. here I have lifted my image just so you can get a better idea

6. and Here I have taken a picture from the back

7. once you are happy you have placed the nestie correctly, run the image through your cutting machine, mine is the cuttlebug

8. here is the image once it's been cut out with the nestie, see how the hat is still in front of the nestie and hasn't been cut off, but the rest of the paper has been cut away

9. before removing the image from my nestie I quickly sponged a bit of ink around the edges

10. here is the image sponged, and cut out ready to be removed from the nestie (* tips 4: if you are going to add glitter or glaze or any shiny bits do it now and not before running the image through the cutting machine)

11. here is the image removed from the nestie, sponged and ready to be used on a card

I mounted my image on double sided foam and then layered it on another nestie circle mat. I added some baubles, brads, and a bit of ribbon. Quick simple and easy. Now go and try it and please drop me a comment if you do so I can come and see your gorgeous designs. Oh, I nearly forgot, you can of course always double stamp your image, colour one complete one and on the other only the hat, cut it out with a craft knife or scissors and place it on your complete image. The complete image needs to be cut out with the nestie but you need to cut through the image where you want it to extend.

If you have further questions please let me know, I will answer as soon as I get a free moment.

Happy crafting.

Meahni