Scrappin' Saturday: Think Outside The Box!

Think outside the box....the Cricut box that is!

We all are familiar with the shadow, blackout and layer features of the die-cuts in our cartridge stash.  But what do you do when the die cut you have just isn't working for a layout?  For today's Scrappin' Saturday, I'd like to challenge you to come up with a way to make your Cricut die-cuts unique!

One way I draw inspiration for altering my die cuts is to look at my photos.  They provide the subject matter, the color scheme and the "feel" of my layouts.  They are what I base my entire design on.  So why not use photos to help inspire us to make the perfect coordinating die cut for our pages?

I am using a die-cut heart from the George and Basic Shapes cartridge for this example.

Pretty boring, right?  Now I could dress this up using the features offered on my cartridge.  But I'm going to "think outside of my box" and try some new things, all based on elements in my photos.

I don't know about you, but I keep EVERYTHING!  Especially little scraps of ribbon and paper.  When I saw this photo, I wanted to incorporate the stripes on both babies' outfits.  So out came my ribbon scraps.  I ran the heart through my Xyron, set the ribbon pieces down carefully lining up the edges, and then trimmed off the excess.  The result is a custom heart that coordinates with the photo:

On the next photo, I noticed the lights from the carousel right away.  They were sparkly and shiny and I wanted to play on that, so I again ran the heart through my Xyron and then sprinkled glitter (in the same hue as my daughter's shirt), carefully pressing it down to secure.  The result is a sparkly, shiny heart that coordinates with both the color in the photo and the theme:

For the next photo, I drew inspiration from both the theme and color in the photo.  I took a picture of my daughter's first horseback ride.  The leather and details of the saddle inspired my alteration of this heart.  I punched holes randomly, added copper brads and then inked the entire shape with brown ink.  I love the way it coordinates with the saddle:

I love the flower and the pink and green color scheme of my daughter's PJs in the next photo.  So I embellished my die cut to match.  I stamped bright pink flowers and added green paint to the centers of the flowers and around the edge.  The result is a heart that looks like it could be a coordinating accessory to her outfit:

The polka dots on my daughter's shirt in the next photo reminded me of some pink polka dot fabric I had in my stash.  So I ran my heart through the Xyron, placed it sticky-side down on the back of the fabric and trimmed around the edge.  I folded the edges over and had a soft, feminine looking heart to coordinate with a super-girly photo and layout:

On this photo of my daughter at the pumpkin patch, I decided to use some paint on the die-cut to make it coordinate.  And using the grooves on the pumpkin as inspiration, I added vertical lines on the heart by running my stylus through the wet paint:

These are just a few examples of how I gain inspiration from my photos to give my die-cuts a more custom, coordinating look on my layouts. 

Now it's your turn!  I want to hear where you gain inspiration from and what techniques and materials you use to alter your die-cuts.  Leave a comment below and give us some more FANTABULOUS inspiration!

Happy Scrappin'!!!