Joyce’s birthday isn’t until mid February, so don’t tell her you saw her card!

Here is an eSnips link to the Cricut “.cut” softcut file.
Kitty: Smile It’s Your Day

Step-By-Step Tutorial

First you will place all the elements of your design on the first “page”. Name that page by right clicking anywhere on the mat. You’ll see here I’m naming the page “The Design.” This design only has 5 elements on it. In this close up you are seeing 3 of the 5…the streamer from the balloon, the cat, and the word smile.

Welding
Once you get the hang of what “welding” is meant to do it is pretty easy. Basically all you do is overlap the edges of your design elements and make sure each element has “welding” checked in the bottom left corner of the “Shape Properties” box. It is a little tricky getting the hang of inserting elements individually so that the program doesn’t insert them side by side as with letters in a word. If this happens just click “control z” to “undo” or hit backspace while the handles are visible to delete the last shape added. I’ve found it is easier to work with if each design element is separate. (Letters in a word excluded.) Click your mouse outside the element somewhere else on the mat to place the cursor. Then insert your next element again.

Here is an example from the shadow mat where “its your day” is selected. You can see by the handles it is its own element. And, you can see “welding” checked. Just make sure each element has that box checked.

Creating a Shadow
Once your design is done you can start on the shadow. In my design the shadow is the only item welded and I didn’t actually cut the “my design” page. Those elements were to be cut in all different colors. So, I copied and pasted them on new mats later.

1)Create a new page by selecting the “View” menu and clicking “new page”.
2)Right click on it and label it “shadow”.
3)Go back to your design tab and select “include page in preview.”
4)Then go up to the View menu and select “Keep preview as mat background.

Now you are ready to create your shadow.

5) Go to your empty shadow tab and you’ll see the design is there as a preview. Use this outline to place shadow or blackout images of your design element by clicking the appropriate buttons in your cartridge “overlay.”

When you finish it will look something like this:

Note the two cut lines. Now you’ll want to zoom to 100% or even 200% in order to make sure your cut lines are welding correctly. Look at the close up below. I’ve unchecked the “Keep Preview as Mat Background” option under the View menu. So, we are just looking at the completed shadow cut lines. Notice how some lines are bold and others are not? Only the bold lines will cut.

You may have to waste some scrap paper in order to get the hang of this. In my card you’ll see there is a triangle between the “y” and “d” that didn’t cut right. I left it so you could see what happens. In the image below I’ve adjusted it so that the area will cut out correctly. Initially the middle whisker was invading the triangle and on my card the tiny cut area was the corner of the whisker. So, I merely clicked on “its your day” held the “ctrl” button down for fine tune incremental adjustments and clicked the right arrow 3 to 5 times. I checked the preview after each adjustment and kept moving it until the triangle had a bold cut line.

Preparing to Cut
When you are happy with the welding of your shadow you can start planning your cut. I noticed my shadow was only using 3/4 of the page and chose two items that would fit in the top of the mat. I went to my design page and clicked on “smile” then select “copy” from the “Edit” menu. I then went to my shadow page, and pasted it. In order to get it to fit in an empty area, maybe to fit a peice of scrap paper, you can rotate it by clicking “turn 90? in the shape properties box. If you need to fine tune it to get it to fit, use the “handle” in the lower left corner. Just be careful not to use the handle in the lower right corner which will re-size it…or your cuts won’t line up!

Now you are ready to cut this mat. I used an old black sheet w/ white polka dots, but I’ve included a “Black Bling” paper link below that would also work. On the top of the mat I used a red paper from the Creative Memories Celebration kit.

I LOVE that with Design Studio you can plan out your layout and get the cuts done in less than 1/2 the time by cutting your items in groups. Here you can see the cutting mat with the “Smile” and “party hat” elements on top and the “Shadow” (which is all the elements’ shadow layers welded together) on bottom.

And here is how you would place the paper for the cuts.

Here is my second cutting mat with the rest of the elements.

And here is how I positioned the paper. You can tell exactly where to put the paper! It can’t get any easier. I used scrap paper to for the photo shoot as this was an after thought, and the grey piece is a little small, but you get the idea.

Assembly and Embellishments
Next I used the Cuttlebug to create the orange embossed background and the kitty’s embossed nose. Doesn’t it even look scratchy?!

For those that don’t know what a Cuttlebug is I’ve included some pictures so you get the idea. Basically you put the paper in an embossing folder. Then between two layers of plastic on top of another plastic base. Stick it in the Cuttlebug and turn the handle to send it through. The orange sheet required two passes, and it leaves a seam but this design covers the seam.

For the Kitty’s face I first embossed it, then applied Jim Holtz’s “old paper” Distress Ink to the edges to try and add some dimension.

I just eyeballed the nose and cut the triangle.

Things start moving a little faster from here on. Your elements are all cut and you can start adhereing everything together. I use a Xyron for most of the adhesive. But the ribbon was a little trickier. I finally settled on using a glue gun. I’ll have to search for something easier to work with though.

Wait to apply the stickles until the end because you’ll have to wait for it to dry. I applied “Platinum” stickles for his “fur”. His whiskers were rubbed more heavily w/ the Distress Ink before I assembled the card, then I applied “Frosted Lace” stickles. I just love the contrast in real life, though it is tough to appreciate in the picture.

I didn’t like the way the holes in the “S” looked so I put “Candy Cane” red stickles in the holes for a stitched look then applied it to the middle of the other letters. I’d never worked with Stickles until recently and they are a breeze to work with. Just keep a sewing needle or pin handy because they clog occassionally.

The rest of the Stickles colors are listed in the shopping list. The eyes are rhinestones from some “Whispers” flowers because that is all I had on hand. So, they are not on the shopping list, but I think they’ll be easy to find.

Hope you enjoyed the demonstration. Be sure and let me know if you are confused on anything and I’ll fine tune it!

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