enTWINEd challenge at Heart 2 Heart

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Welcome to this weeks challenge at {Heart 2 Heart}. EnTWINEd is this weeks challenge. You can take that however you would like. A love layout, flowers on a vine, or use your favorite twine on a project. This week is up to you.

I have been seeing this type of project a lot, with twine or string wrapped in a loose circle around the focal point and I wanted to have my take on it.

No Cricut on this card, which is kinda weird. I am still working on how to upload my stamps to make them cut. I tried on the butterfly but didn't turn out quite the way I wanted, so I fussy cut. I hate fussy cutting. This is why I got my Cricut, so I wouldn't have to.

Back to the card. I used hemp instead of twine, but I still think it fits the challenge, especially since it entwines the butterfly. I had to dig through my stash to find it, but yay for using my stash. I used Liquid Glass to adhere it to the card.  I cut the washi tape and the shimmer trim down with my paper trimmer to have them thinner. So easy to do with adhesive backed items. It doesn't move, so you can cut them pretty thin. I also colored the sequins with my ShinHan markers. The stamps are hostess only stamps. You must have a $150 order, whether it be just you or as a gathering, but they are discounted and you use your free hostess credit.

I hope you enjoyed my project. We would like it if you where to play along with us. Remember you must use a Close To My Heart product to play along. To place your order, head to {nikkageers.ctmh.com}. Then come back and play, you have all month to enter,

Please join my {Facebook group} to get updates on new tutorials, artwork and specials. 

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I offer one on one classes for Cricut Design Space. Stop by for more {details}.

Recipe:

Butterfly Thanks 

Stamps -

   B1471   Variety Of Thanks (Hostess Only Stamp Set)

   C1606   A Thing Well Done (Hostess Only Stamp Set)

Paper-

   X254   Cards And Envelopes

Ink-

   Z2195   Lagoon Ink Pad

   Z2105   Black Ink Pad

   Z2455   Light Orange ShinHan Marker

Other-

   Z1923   Smoothie Washi Tape

   Z3024   White Shimmer Tape

   Z2013   Silver Sequins

   Z1151   3D Foam Tape

   Z679   Liquid Glass

   Retired   Black Hemp

5 Minute Tutorial - Print Then Cut A White Background

It's Sunday, so I have a new 5 minute tutorial for you. This is how to have a white background with your print then cut. It is quite easy, so lets get started.

Find the image you want to use. I am using image #M3EA6B from Art Philosophy. I want the tag to be long, not wide, so I rotated the image 90 degrees. Remember, the little "flower" next to the box is an easy rotate. Just click which rotation you want and it will rotate for you.

 Choose your text. Make sure to change the justification to center. It looks more pleasing this way. But it is your choice.

Change the size of your tag. If you rotated the image like I did, remember that when you are sizing the image. I chose the width to be 3 inches, but since the image is rotated, it will be 3 inches high. Size the text to fit inside the tag.

Here is the important part. Click on the tag and change to white.

Select all and flatten. You do not need to attach, flatten will do that for you.

Double check on the preview mat that it is set to print then cut.

Here is what it will look like once it is printed. Don't be afraid, You will not see the tag at this point. And it does not actually print the white, it will only print colors.

Here is the magic. Once it cuts, you will see the image. You can now print with white all you want.

Not all of my tutorials will be posted in some Facebook groups, so please join my {Facebook group} to get updates on new tutorials, artwork and specials.  

Visit my {tutorial page} for all my tutorials.

Subscribe to my {Youtube Channel} for updates on new Create Your Card videos.

I offer one on one classes for Cricut Design Space. Stop by for more {details}.

I have used the following Close To My Heart products in the tutorial, place your orders at {nikkageers.ctmh.com}.

Art Philosophy Cartridge Z1686

Artbooking Cartridge Z1906

Artfully Sent Cartridge Z3017

White Daisy Cardstock 1385

I would love to see what you make using this tutorial. Add your blog below in the linky.

Cricut Explore Tutorial - Attach vs Slice

Hello again. Back with a new tutorial. I see this come up a lot so I wanted to do a tutorial. Which to use, Attach or Slice.

Slice permanently alters the image. You use it to make new images or cut off parts of images.

You can remove part of the card, leaving the detailed part.

You take a negative and make it a positive.

You can cut an image in half.

You use attach to cut an image without altering.

Use attach to cut text out of a card.

To cut a circle to make an EOS card.

When you attach, it will still cut out the original image inside the image. If you do not want that, slice instead.

If you want to get rid of part of an image, use contour for an easier way instead of slice.  Here is my {contour tutorial}

I hope this clarifies the difference. If you enjoyed this tutorial, check out my {tutorial page} for my other tutorials.

Please join my {Facebook group} for updates on new tutorials, artwork and specials.

Subscribe to my {Youtube Channel} for updates on new Create Your Card videos.

I offer one on one classes for Cricut Design Space. Stop by for more {details}.

Remember, you can print my tutorials or save them a pdf by clicking the print friendly button below.

I have used the following Close To My Heart Products, which you can order at {nikkageers.ctmh.com}

Artiste Cartridge Z1790

Artbooking Cartridge Z1906

Artfully Sent Cartridge Z3017

Thank you

Thank you to everybody who has been visiting my blog. I am now getting 1000 views a day. I am still in awe over this.

I have added a few buttons to make things easier for you and easier to share. Every picture has a 

Pinterest button. You can now save your favorite posts to come back to. Or save the beautiful artwork that I post. Just hover over the pic, or click if you are on a tablet, and it will share to your Pinterest. 

 There is also a print friendly button on the bottom of every post. 

 

This is the screen that will pull up. You have the choice of printing, saving as a pdf or emailing as a pdf.

My tutorials will always be free. But you can show your support by ordering from me through my website at {http://nikkageers.ctmh.com/ }

I will soon be offering workshops you can order.  

Again, thank you so much for enjoying my blog.  You can join my {Facebook group} to get updates on new tutorials, artwork and specials. I also do some specials just through my Facebook group, so make sure to join for those.

5 Minute Tutorial - Make A Solid Layer

Hi. Here is my first 5 minute tutorial. Every week, I will post a new quickie tutorial. Simple projects you can do in 5 minutes. 

Take and image and duplicate. You want them to both be the same size. This will only work with a detailed image.  I used image #M10232F. This is the icon. It is from the Artfully Sent cartridge, so it comes grouped with all the layers. Delete all that you don't need.

Select one and click contour.

It will turn blue once contour is selected.

Remove the details of the inside of the image. It will change to a different blue. Click contour to finish.

And there you go. You now have a solid butterfly to back your detailed butterfly.

If you would like, you can enlarge the background slightly, very slightly, to have it have a shadow, like so. Some images won't match exactly, so the smaller the border is, the better it will look.

Told you it was a quick one. If you would like to see my other tutorials, check out my {tutorials page}.

Please join my {Facebook group} for updates on new tutorials, artwork and specials. 

Subscribe to my {Youtube Channel} for updates on new Create Your Card videos.

I offer one on one classes for Cricut Design Space. Stop by for more {details}.

I used the following Close To My Heart products, you can order them at {nikkageers.ctmh.com}

Cricut Explore Tutorial - How To Cut Images Larger Than Your Mat

Hello. I am back with a new tutorial. This one had been requested a couple of times.

Everyone wants to know how to cut an image larger than the mats. You can use this with both sizes of mats, 12 x 12 and 12 x 24. So you can cut large images and only use a 12 x 12 mat.

I am using image #M3AA00 for the tree and #M41F28 for the rectangle. I sized the rectangle 11 x 11 so it will fit on the 12 x 12 mat. Remember, even tho the mat is 12 x 12, you can cut up to 11.5 x 11.5. Copy as many rectangle you are going to need to cover the whole image. And you have to do each layer at a time. This had two layer, so you will have to do this for each layer. I hope they will update slice to allow it to do more than 1 layer at a time.

Zoom out so you can see the whole image on the screen.

Most important step is to not move anything during this, especially when cutting in each layer.

Place you squares over the image. You want them to line up, they can even overlap slightly. And no gaps. You need to make sure the whole image fits in a square, which is going to be each mat.

This tree has two layers, so you need to work with each layer. The eye is your friend in this. Hide every layer you are not working with. To slice, you can only use 2 images at a time. I will show you how to do this when two images take up the same square, like the bottom of the tree and the words.

Select the tree and the first square and slice.

Once you slice, it makes 3 layers. Delete the big square.

Hide the cut layer.

Now you want the tree and the second square. Select the two images and slice.

Keep doing this until you are done.

Here is what you do when there are two layers and you can't slice them.

Choose the square and the first layer. Slice.

Now don't delete the created square. Use that and slice the second layer.

Now delete the square. Both of the layers will be cut.

Here is the layer all cut up. Make sure there are no gaps. Work on the next layer the same way. There is no second layer for the font, so it will only be the tree. Which makes things easier.

If you sized the correctly, they will fit in the mat. You don't have to hide all the layers and do one mat at a time, but if it is too detailed, you may get the wheel of death. I recommend doing it that way to avoid frustration.

Here is it after being cut. This was just a test cut for this tutorial, so I used contact paper. But for some reason, it was not wanting to stick. So I only cut two of the panels. And it looks like crap, but you get the idea.

Here is the panel after being weeded.  Transfer paper will be your friend here. It will make things easier to line up.

I adhered it to the 'wall'.  Make sure to burnish well so it is smooth.

Take you time and line up the new panel with the old. You want the seam to be invisible. Really take your time and make it perfect. If you do this right, no one will know that it isn't one giant piece.

Burnish well and remove the transfer paper. Keep doing this til the whole project is done.

  Here are the two panels. Its about 22 in wide. Other than the fact it did not want to stick, you can't even tell where the seam is.

So there you go. You are no longer limited to the size of the mat when making projects. Go ahead, vinyl your whole wall above the stairs or behind the couch. Just remember to use indoor vinyl for these projects.

Thank you for visiting this tutorial. You can see all the tutorials I have at my {tutorial page}

 Please join my {Facebook group} for updates on new tutorials, artwork and specials.

Subscribe to my {Youtube Channel} for updates on new Create Your Card videos.

I offer one on one classes for Cricut Design Space. Stop by for more {details}.

Cricut Explore Tutorial - Knockout Text Tutorial

Hi all. Back again with a new tutorial. I have had requests to do a tutorial on knockout text so here is my go at it.

This technique shows a silhouette inside a block of text. I decided to do my tutorial with the silhouette of my dog. She is an English Bull Terrier. Like Spuds McKenzie. She is too cute.

You are going to want to search for a silhouette to use. You want it to coordinate with whatever text you are going to use. I chose love my dog so I used a silhouette of an English bull terrier.

You will need to upload the image in Design Space. Use Basic Upload for this. 

Choose your image and use simple image for this.

Clean your image by using the magic wand to remove the background. This should be all you need to do. Double check your cut by clicking on the eye. It will show the red cut line. If you are happy with it, click the green button.

When you go to save, make sure to unclick the preserve original image. You should see the red cut line. If you do not unclick this button, it will keep the image and set it to print then cut. You do not want this.

You need two items for this. The silhouette and text. As you can see, I have two silhouettes. A full body and just the head. I am not sure which will work better so I will try with both.

Add text. You want a bold font. I chose Arial Black. See if your font has a bold option in the box below the fonts name. The bolder the font, the better this will turn out.

If you have more than one row of text, which you really want for this look, make sure to change the justification to center. Do not use two separate text boxes during this. Just hit enter to go to the next line. You won't be able to slice if you use more than one text box.

You need to move the letter closer together to make this work. You want as much of a solid background as you can. Do not separate the letters. You will not be able to slice. Using letter spacing, lower the numbers for both vertical and horizontal spacing. Get them as close as you can, but still separate enough to see each letter. You do not want them to overlap.

Size your text to the size you want. Then size your silhouette to fit in the words. You may have the silhouette larger than the text to make this work. You need to see what the image is in the text.

Select both the text and the silhouette and slice.

This is what it looks like once you slice. Delete the layer you don't need, which is the silhouette. You need both of the text. It is hard to describe. You will understand when you look at the image. If you delete the wrong one, don't worry. Click undo on the top of the screen.

Change the color of the silhouette to black. It really doesn't matter what colors you use, you just want to make sure the images cut separately from each other. They do need to be two different colors in your final project.

And there you go. You now have your own knockout text.

When you go to cut, do not attach. That will change it back to the same color and we do not want that. As long as you didn't separate your text, it will cut out correctly.

Here are my two knockout images. I think I like the full body better than the head. Play around until you get the look you want. You may have to enlarge the silhouette or even get a new one.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Check out all my other tutorials on my {tutorial page}.

Feel free to join my {Facebook group} to get updates on new tutorials, artwork and specials.

Subscribe to my {Youtube Channel} for updates on new Create Your Card videos.

I offer one on one classes for Cricut Design Space. Stop by for more {details}.