A quick CCR cutting tip

Here's something that I regularly do when I have a mat full of objects and I only want to cut some of them...

Let's say my mat looks like this:

There's shapes and text from several carts on the mat. But say I only want to cut "celebrate" and one of the hearts....

... I could create another mat layer in my project and cut and paste the other images to the new mat.

... Or I could select the ones I don't want to cut and delete them.

Or..... what I do is move the images I don't want to cut away from the cutting area of the mat.

You may know by now that any images that go outside the yellow border around the mat won't cut. While that's annoying when I want to cut a large image in sections I can at least use that to my advantage.

Click the Zoom Out button on the toolbar so that you can see the white area to the right of the mat.

Now drag the images that you don't want to cut over to the white area beside the mat. Move your other images to where you want them to cut. (You don't even have to move them right off the mat. If even part of the image goes over the yellow line it won't cut.)

Click Cut/Go to send your project to the Cricut.

After it has cut the two shapes that are on the mat you will see this message:

Press the OK button to return to the cutting screen then press Done. Easy right????

If you want to cut some of the other shapes, just move them back onto the mat and move the others off if necessary. Then cut your project again.

There's no problem saving your project with the images off the mat. Just remember next time you open it your mat will probably be zoomed in and you may not see those images until you zoom out again.

 

Copying objects to a new layer (for CCR builds prior to 167)

For information of Copying and Pasting in CCR builds from 167 on click here: http://cricutcraftroomblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/copying-objects-to-new-layer-updated.html

Do you want to copy images from one mat layer and place them on a different mat layer? Well here's how you do it.

1. First, make sure you have Mat Layers enabled (Options menu, Craft Room tab).

You may also want to have Fill Mode Enabled (Options menu, Craft Room tab) but it's not necessary. For this exercise I have it turned on to make it easer to see where the layers are being pasted to.

2. Highlight the object you want to copy and click the Copy button. That image will be copied to your clipboard.

3. Click on the Mat Layers menu and click the Add New Layer button.  (Figure 1). That layer will now become the active layer. You'll know that because that layer will be highlighted in grey. (Figure 2)

If you have already added your new layer make that layer active by clicking on its name in the Layers menu so that it's highlighted. 

Figure 1

Figure 2

4. Press the Paste button. Your object will now appear on the new layer. 

You can see that it worked because the pasted object is a different colour to the original and matches the coloured dot beside the layer name.

If you wish you can now delete your original object. Or, if you want to remove (cut) your object from one layer and Paste it to another, simply press the Cut button at step 2 instead of the Copy button. 

Having problems getting it to work? Keep the following in mind....

• Before you select the Paste button ensure that the layer name you are pasting to is highlighted. 

• Make sure the layer you are pasting to is visible. The eye next to your layer name should be green. (Like the picture above). If the eye is grey your layer is hidden and you won't see your pasted object.
  
  In the picture below, the layer I have pasted to is hidden. (The eye is grey.) Even though I have pasted my object it's not visible.

Once I make the layer visible the pasted image appears.

More on Printing and Cutting layers with the Imagine

In this post I showed you how to group together all the layers from an image so you can print and cut the entire object.

http://cricutcraftroomblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/printing-and-cutting-disney-layers-on.html

Today I want to show you how to take that one step further, using the Hide Contour feature.

Many of the layers on the carts are made up of more than one shape. For example the Pluto image on the Mickey Font cart has a collar that doesn't align correctly because it is made up of 3 separate parts. The part on the left doesn't align properly with the other layers of the object.

This is how it looks not aligned properly beside how it should look:

  

Now, let me show you how to achieve that using a second copy of the collar and the Hide Contour feature.

Place all the parts of Pluto except for the collar on the mat and align them correctly on top of each other.

Don't forget to select Don't Weld on each of the layers. I just picked any old colour from the colour palette for this example.

Place two copies of the collar on the mat. You can colour them now or later when you place the object on top of the other layers. I've coloured them here so it's easier to see.

Note: Don't use Copy and Paste to create your second copy of the object. Pasted objects don't work well with the Hide Contour feature. Quite often the whole object will be hidden instead of just the contour you are clicking on. 

We only need two copies of the collar because it is only the left hand part that doesn't align. The two right hand parts are in their correct positions and don't need to be separated.

Select the first collar and click the Hide Contour button

Hover your mouse over the left hand piece of the image and click to hide it.

Press the Exit button to return to the main screen.

Your image will look like this:

Select the 2nd copy of the collar and click the Hide Contour button

This time hide the two right hand side pieces

Select Exit to return to the mat.

That piece will now look like this:

To two pieces together will look like this:

Select the larger piece and move it over and align it

Select the other piece and move it over and align it.

And you're done!

So, that was an easy one to do because we only needed to hide two parts of a layer.

You'll find that many of the images on the carts will have layers that are made up of numerous parts. For example Boo(1) from the Best of Pixar cart has five parts to her face, arms and legs, three parts to her hair, five parts to her boots, smile and eyes and two parts to her pants. That's a lot of layers to duplicate and contours to hide!

And because there's no Blackout feature on this cart and I didn't want to use the Shadow for the background I hid all the inside contours of the Base image too. (Zoom is your best friend when doing this).

  

And here she is put together.

Here's another one. This is Dash from the Best of Pixar and it was a marathon effort.

Please ignore his pink eyes. I forgot to change them back to white before I printed him!