Ode to Annapurna's gorgeous Handmade fresh cuts Technique

Annapurna gave me a sweet deal on some Close to my Heart sets and she sent me this gorgeous card that she made with her handmade fresh-cuts technique! <--Be sure to click through, you don't want to miss the wicked template she has for you (that she made with photoshop!) I love how she took her inspiration from a pillow to invent this new technique. SO inspiring! Her technique adds such an original texture & has tonnes of layering potential.

All you need to try Annapurna's technique is: a hobby knife & paper (unless you're wicked awesome with scissors.)



I don't have photoshop (or have a clue how to use it) so I used Stampin' Up1's 5 petal flower punch & drew this template to fit inside of it, but you can play without the punch too. :0) You can find the PDF for the template here.

Here's the result of the smallest 5-petal flower center:

...and I'm not sure if I did it right, but here's my take on how to do
Annapurna's hand-cut Fresh Cuts technique:

1) Punch flower & trim/die-cut paper so it's in the middle of your shape. (Have no punch? I traced its shape, so you can cut it out with a hobby blade; I'm naughty!) One benefit to my liberty-taking tracing of the punch is that you can resize the template jpeg & print it; the parts will compliment each other no matter how big you make it. Also, with a blade you can cut it into any sized paper (so no limits from how far the punch reaches in.) I do love the punches' crisp lines, though, & how it works with so many sets.


2) If you're using patterned designer paper, you can move your punched paper around to find the perfect spot on your paper or to find the spot where you stamped (or this is also a great way to use up scraps of d.p. You can see if it fits.) This d.p. is Baby Paisley by Bohemia.










3) Got a light table? You can use it to line up your pattern/stamping (but please don't cut on there<--that may seem a stupid thing to say, but I've done more mindless things than that, so....) You can add a little adhesive, where it won't show through the punched shape, to stick the template to the patterned paper.




4) Cut along the lines of the template, removing the bits. No need to worry about perfection, the beauty of Annapurna's technique is that you distress the edges giving it a great look, but also creating the opportunity to fix woobly lines.

Pointer: it is really great to keep very sharp blades in your hobby knife.






5) A paper piercer seems to be a nifty way to distress & get into the corners, but you may wanna go gently--I tore part--but I added a brad, so it's ok. ;0) I keep imagining what a piece of paper with several of these cut-outs would look like...












I used the flower template as a faux stitching template too, so it was really easy to add the matching faux-stitched flower pattern to the Blue Bayou cardstock. I was going to stitch each flower, but then I was relieved to remember Allison's white ink challenge (Allison, you saved me a LOT of sewing!) Sew, I sewed the stitches around the white cardstock instead & I coloured the faux-stitch flowers with white Signo gel pen (don't know if it counts as white ink since tinted it with a CTMH Breeze marker to make it look soft sky):

Other card details:

The white flowers punched with SU spring bouquet punch layered with circles punched from metallic c.s. & dollar store gems. Ribbon Soft Sky stitched (with the stitches pulled out) Hodge podge hardware. "Happy" is from define your life & it's stamped with markers.

and I'm trying not to ignore the insides of cards anymore, so I decorated this one:

This card is for my super-talented friend Kim's birthday & I know just how I want to write in it--kind of journaling-ish-ly. It'll be in her mailbox before she has a chance to see this, so it's safe. ;0)

Other nifty things you can do with the 5-petal punch:

• Judi's two-toned daisy tutorial
• Blythe's 3 layers of 5-petal flowers
• StamperDog's 3 flowers with the 5-petal punch (video)
• Renee's new trick for old SU 5-petal punch
• Dawn's 10 petal flower tutorial (shared by Brenda)
  

P.S. Curious about the new SU scallop punch? Mary gives us a peek here