Thanks to Margaret for today’s idea. She posted to the Klic-N-Kut Yahoo group with a welding issue. She wanted to weld a partial outline of flowers to a flower pot for the purpose of creating a shaped greeting card. The problem is that you cannot weld unclosed objects. In Margaret’s project, by turning on
Fill, you can see that the top part is not closed and bottom part is closed:
In general, when you need to do a basic weld on two objects and either or both are not closed, it’s easy to get them closed. If the path you need to close is continuous, then just select the image and go to
Arrange>Close Graphics. Or, if the path is not continuous, then you can try
Arrange>Connect Path and enter a fairly large value (try 1) and all gaps will close… hopefully… although, you may find that the wrong ends get joined together diagonally across your image!
In today’s video,
Flower Pot Design
I show another way to connect the two ends of a gap. Just select the end nodes and use the middle top icon to connect the ends with a straight line. Then you can proceed with the rest of the weld.
For those interested in designing shaped greeting cards, watch the entire video to see how easy it is to use the Flip and Weld technique to create perfect symmetry and even a dashed fold line, if desired.
With graduation just around the corner and a few recent posts by readers here inquiring about the cupcake wrappers, I decided to post new links for downloading these terrific files. All of these particular cupcake wrappers were designed and shared by Judy Keating, a very talented and successful owner of a Klic-N-Kut Maxx. She designs these wrappers in KNK Studio but also has exported the files in both AI and SVG formats. Those of you needing the files in DXF, should be able to use Inkscape (free from
Inkscape.org) to open the SVG’s and then save as DXF for your particular software program.
As with ALL cutting files you buy or download for free, test cut them first from inexpensive cardstock. In particular, with the cupcake wrappers, be sure to check the sizing. You may need to increase or decrease to fit the actual cupcakes you make or buy. Many of these designs are quite intricate, so use a clean sticky mat to keep your paper or cardstock firmly pressed down during cutting.
Also note that there is a template/pattern file included so that you can add your own words and images to weld to the same base frame used by Judy in her designs. If you would like to share your own design with all of the other readers here or just a photo of your custom wrapper, please send it to me at smccauley45@cox.net .
Judy’s Cupcake Wrappers in KNK Format
Judy’s Cupcake Wrappers in SVG Format
For those of you new to Inkscape, spend some time researching and reading basic Inkscape tutorials so that you understand how to resize images, break apart to delete ones you don’t need, and also simplify nodes so that the files cut faster to your particular cutter.
Judy’s Cupcake Wrappers in AI Format
Thanks, once again, Judy for your generous contribution to the cutting world! : )
Thanks to Sharon M for today’s topic about converting a paper piecing project into a coloring book image. It’s very simple to do and it only took a few steps to show the basic procedure:
Creating a Coloring Book Image
However, there were a few things that were a little different about Sharon’s project so it provided an opportunity to cover a few more features in the software, specifically how to weld some of the individual pieces before using the Thick Line Attribute. And also how to die cut one image from another. Both of these have been covered in previous posts, however this project gave new applications.
As usual, as I’m typing this now, I realize that I forgot one of the important tips when recording today’s video. UGH!!! When you have completed your coloring book image, you may wish to save it as a PDF file OR even convert it to a JPG or BMP. For PDF, just go to File>Publish to PDF. Remember to uncheck the box which forbids printing:
Whether or not you choose to forbid editing is entirely up to you. : ) You will need to select a password if you do choose that option.
If you wish to export as a JPG or BMP, select the image first, then go to File>Export image and you can select Monochrome since it will be a black and white image. Normally, 300 is the standard resolution used in digital images, so I would recommend leaving that at 300.
Of course, if you are doing this with a colored image, then leave the Full Color option checked.
The last step will be to name your exported image, select a location on your computer to save it, and then you have your choice of five raster formats: .bmp, jpg, .pcx, .png, or.tif.
So, have fun converting images to coloring book pages for the children in your life! Or even for YOU! Happy Coloring! :)
Need a quick balanced rhinestone fill option? Check out the newest method I found for filling images in KNK Studio with circles. It involves using the Array function to create a pattern of horizontal lines through your image:
Move the image to the top of the lines. Select both the image and the line array and apply the AND Weld function:
Then another Make Path is applied, a circle added and the usual Transform>Fit Object to Path, results in the pink pattern shown at the top right of this post.
Other options are available. For example, I could have angled the lines or even made them vertical versus horizontal:
And this would have resulted in a different overall look as shown in the image in the middle. At this point, I could even borrow one part from image and combined it with another part from the other image, producing the fill pattern shown at the far right. As always… many options!
As usual, I have a video for those who want detail! Enjoy! Note that this method also works well filling letters.
Filling Rhinestone Patterns Using the AND Weld
A second application for the Color Picker tool is converting a low resolution raster image to a vector image for printing. As I’m sure all of you are aware, a poor quality image only looks worse when enlarged for printing. But, if you really want to use that image, then you can vectorize it first, use the Color Picker to select original colors from the image, and then have a much better graphic for enlarging and printing. Note the visual difference between the original raster on the left and the new vector on the right, when zoomed in close:
Again, you can do this with any version of KNK Studio, KNK Studio GE, Design Master, or ACS Studio. If you missed yesterday’s post, you might want to view it first and then watch today’s video using the palm tree.
Color Matching Video Part 2
