RRCB146 Boo! and a DiecutTutorial

 Happy Tuesday, peeps!  It's time for a new Retro Rubber challenge, where we use stamps that are least a year old!  Here's our prompt for this challenge:

What a cute prompt....and here's my take on it:

I diecut three pumpkins from Pumpkin Pie cardstock; the only stamping is the alphabet, which I won several years ago; it's from Concord & 9th, and I don't usually use alphabets, but I hung on to this one and I am glad I did!  Here's a close-up:

My background paper is from SU, from a few years back, and I added some black, orange and white glimmer stars for fun!  And here's the inside, using a CTMH set from 2018:

Now, I want to show you a little trick I came up to make using dies a little easier. I am sure someone may have come up with this before, but it's always good to see it again! These Impression Obsession dies are not open; they are solid, and if you look closely, you can see the ridges on the pumpkins:

Now, if you are just cutting out a plain pumpkin, that would be easy.  But I wanted to stamp a letter on the pumpkin before I diecut it because I knew I would not get a good image stamping over top of those ridges once I diecut it.  But I can't see the letter stamped on the cardstock to center it, because the die is closed.  So, I cut a template from a piece of cardboard (the white piece here) first:

I then stamped my letter on the cardstock, laid it on my Big Shot platform, and laid the template over it, centering it where I wanted it:

I placed the die over top of the template, seating it in the opening; it just sort of fits neatly in there like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle!

Then I ran it through my diecutting machine, and I had a nicely-centered image!

It works well with open dies too!  Many of SU's newer dies are made to cut very close to the outline of the image and sometimes it's a challenge to get them lined up just right.  Here, I have stamped the berry sprig from the new Poinsettia Petals stamp:

I cut a template from some cardboard (the brown piece), layered it over the stamped image:

This time, since the image was small, I anchored the die with some washi tape before running it through the Big Shot:

And here is the finished product!  SO pretty!

Hopefully you'll find that little tip helpful!  It has saved me lots of diecutting woes!

So, what will inspire you with our cute little inspiration photo this week?  Be sure to use stamps that are at least a year old, and tell us how old they are!  Then share your spooky project with us at Retro Rubber!  Can't wait to see what you come up with! 

A little more Hershey Park adventure!

 Thanks for popping in today--enjoy it and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Hello Pumpkin Cardmaking (Close to My Heart 2018), Bold & Brushy Uppercase Alphabet (at least 5 years old)
Card stock & Papers	Whisper White, Pumpkin Pie, Black, Orange and Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer, Spooky Night DSP (ret)
Ink	Stazon Black
Accessories	Black Mini Dimensionals
Tools	Big Shot, Pumpkin Dies (Impression Obsession), Star Die (Verve)