Using MTC to Design a Custom Shaped Puzzle

Puzzle Heart

Long time, no post! Hopefully today’s topic on designing a custom shaped jigsaw puzzle will help make up for my absence!

There are a number of different methods for combining a puzzle from MTC’s Puzzle Generator with any shape to create a custom-shaped puzzle like the one shown above. Other MTC owners have posted their methods, including Bryan Williams in one of MTC’s Tuesday night webinars. His method and mine are virtually identical other than how we edit the puzzle to remove extra lines. Anyhow, here’s a link to the new video I made:

Designing a Heart Shaped Puzzle

This is a great exercise in learning two of MTC’s most valuable functions: Boolean Join and the Inverse Eraser.

Then, if you haven’t used the Puzzle Generator, then you might also need this video:

MTC Puzzle Generator

Finally, the heart I created is also available in case it’s something you can use in one of your upcoming Valentine’s projects:

Free Puzzle Heart Files:

KNK Format

MTC Format

PDF Format

Finally, if you do not yet own MTC, it can be purchased for only $57.99 at this link. Let me know if you have any questions!

Valentines in July!

First of all, it’s ALWAYS important to give credit where credit is due. The ideas and methods shown in the video I created today came from a video class taught by Klo Oxford. While she didn’t invent this concept, she did take the time to figure out how to design them in her cutting program and I found her method of creating these spirals to be both brilliant and fun! And it’s relatively easy, too… just make sure you take note of each step and you should be able to create spirals from a wide range of shapes, such as circles, flowers, stars, apples, teddy bears, shamrocks, angels, wedding bells, grad caps, and more! 🙂

The video to learn how to do this in KNK and ACS Studio is here:

Creating a Spiral Card

If you want to watch Klo’s video class where she creates a really crazy fun card using stars and circles, then go here:

Klo’s Spiral Card Class

Finally, a big thanks to Lynn Keniston who emailed me about Klo’s video and, thus, prompted me to figure it out for KNK/ACS owners. Thanks, Lynn!!!

The video will show you how to design your spirals. Now for attaching to the inside of your card, here’s a quick method that worked great for me:

1. Decide where you want the spirals in your card. Note that they do not have to be centered. I do like the start of the spiral cut to be positioned towards the center fold:

2. Next, select either side (I chose the left side) and flip it over and apply glue around the outside edge only:

3. Adhere the spiral to the card and clean off any glue that might seep out along the sides.

4. Apply glue to the very center of the spiral, in the place where you want it to attach to the other spiral cut:

5. Place the front of your other spiral face down and centered on top of the first spiral cut. Then apply glue around the outside edge of that spiral:

6. Close the card and then press firmly or use a brayer to make sure the newly glued piece will be adhered to the other side:

7. Open your card! You’re done!

Designing Rhinestone Patterns Part 5

rhinestone4

In the previous post, I show how to use Transform>Inline in KNK Studio to create a fill pattern for rhinestone applications. In today’s video, I show how to use Transform>Metamorphosis, which is perfect for symmetrical designs, such as a heart, a flower, a sun, etc.  This is how I did my own T-Shirt design in the orginal, “Rhinestones, Baby!” post from last week. It’s both interesting AND fun to try both and then decide which look you like best.  I have to again thank, Gerti, for asking how to create nesting shapes for today’s video, too!  If I hadn’t revisited the Metamorphosis function to answer her question on June 28, then I wouldn’t have thought to extend this same application to rhinestone pattern designs!  Thanks, Gerti!