(image is clickable)
The sale that we have been waiting for on SVGs at Lettering Delights! Two days only.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Another 3x3 box and a texture
OK- no cards yet, but another 3x3 box with slightly different closure, This one has a tab to help you to open it up. And a polka dot texture for you to use.
(image is linked to the file)
The texture is included in the file, I scaled it to 40% for this project.
Free box file!
OK, I went blog hopping and saw several boxes for 3x3" cards and thought I would make one - the box, not the cards. Still have to do the cards, hehe!
Now I am not sure what I will do with that frame but I liked the color contrast so I stuck it on there. I may need to revise that part later.
Download the MTC file for this box here. I have a new bottom for this, one where you just tuck in the flap and don't need much (if any) adhesive. I have included the texture (black polka dots on pink background) as well. Enjoy! I would love to see your boxes.
Now I'll need to start working on some 3" x 3" cards to fill this box. That may be my next project.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
How to convert Lettering Delights paper to seamless texture for use in MTC.
MTC now has the ability to apply a texture (or fill) to a shape. You can use any graphic as a texture. The one problem is that this takes up a lot of system resources so it has been suggested to limit the size of the texture to 128x128, 256x256 or (at the largest) 512x512 pixels.
Lettering Delights has so many cute papers that are repetitive and would make wonderful fills. The only problem? They are huge for using in MTC - a whopping 3600 x 3600 pixels! I wanted to use them anyway and devised a way (not perfect) for resizing them so that I can use them in MTC.
Let's take a look at a some of the backgrounds in the "Love is Sweet" paper pack. Several of these can be converted into smaller textures easily.
The easiest of all will be the last one, the stripes. Open this image in a graphics program like Adobe Photoshop Elements. I use PSE 7. Note: You will need to have some basic foundational knowledge of your program - this tutorial is not intended to teach you that. Please do a search for tutorials for your program if you need this knowledge.
Now what you want to end up with is a file that repeats to make the the same image as the original (alternating stripes the same size of pink). For this file crop the original around a section that starts in the middle of the dark pink and ends in the middle of the dark pink. On the left menu, choose the Crop Tool and click the "square" menu choice. I choose to use custom, and made my square 1" x 1" Make your selection. You can zoom in (use Ctrl +) and then use any of the handles to crop your selection. Click the green arrow when you are happy with it.
Let's check the pixel size on this image. Go to Image-Resize-Image size and check out the menu box.
Here's what I got:
Remember I want my end pixel size to be 256x256, I am not far off at tis point. Play around with this box until you get a size of 256 by 256 pixels. Don't worry about how the inches and resolution changes - we are not so interested in that right now. You may need to click a few boxes and such. I think I clicked all the boxes, then entered 256 and it converted easily.
Now you will want to save this as a different file than than the original (so you don't over-write the original). You can choose to save it as whatever, I choose to add 256 to the end of the original filename. Save your file and it is ready to be used.
The final step is to try it out tiled in a shape to see how it looks. Place a simple shape in MTC and fill it with this texture (Select shape, right-click and then Change Color Texture-Select Texture). If it looks right, you are ready to go! If not, you may need to play around a bit more.
Change the scale and rotation as desired. When you select OK, this new texture should fill the shape.
Try playing with different textures. Polka dot patterns can be cropped like this:
And there are some patterns that are just not able to be cropped well. I am sure there are other ways to do this, probably better ways. But this is how it has been working for me to do it. Hope that helps.
Lettering Delights has so many cute papers that are repetitive and would make wonderful fills. The only problem? They are huge for using in MTC - a whopping 3600 x 3600 pixels! I wanted to use them anyway and devised a way (not perfect) for resizing them so that I can use them in MTC.
Let's take a look at a some of the backgrounds in the "Love is Sweet" paper pack. Several of these can be converted into smaller textures easily.
Now what you want to end up with is a file that repeats to make the the same image as the original (alternating stripes the same size of pink). For this file crop the original around a section that starts in the middle of the dark pink and ends in the middle of the dark pink. On the left menu, choose the Crop Tool and click the "square" menu choice. I choose to use custom, and made my square 1" x 1" Make your selection. You can zoom in (use Ctrl +) and then use any of the handles to crop your selection. Click the green arrow when you are happy with it.
Let's check the pixel size on this image. Go to Image-Resize-Image size and check out the menu box.
Here's what I got:
Remember I want my end pixel size to be 256x256, I am not far off at tis point. Play around with this box until you get a size of 256 by 256 pixels. Don't worry about how the inches and resolution changes - we are not so interested in that right now. You may need to click a few boxes and such. I think I clicked all the boxes, then entered 256 and it converted easily.
Now you will want to save this as a different file than than the original (so you don't over-write the original). You can choose to save it as whatever, I choose to add 256 to the end of the original filename. Save your file and it is ready to be used.
The final step is to try it out tiled in a shape to see how it looks. Place a simple shape in MTC and fill it with this texture (Select shape, right-click and then Change Color Texture-Select Texture). If it looks right, you are ready to go! If not, you may need to play around a bit more.
Change the scale and rotation as desired. When you select OK, this new texture should fill the shape.
And there are some patterns that are just not able to be cropped well. I am sure there are other ways to do this, probably better ways. But this is how it has been working for me to do it. Hope that helps.
Tutorial - Card with Lettering Delights DB Floragraphy font
I had several comments for a tutorial on making the card with the LD DB Floragraphy font, so here goes!
Ok, let's start in MTC. First I change the settings on MTC so that I can see the printer margins.Go to File-Print Options
On the original card I rounded the corners but I will not do that for this tutorial (I can cover that in another tutorial if requested).
For the flower, I brought the flower in from the DB Floragraphy font. Import using the "Add font from File" button and choose DB Floragraphy.
Scroll down to find the rose-like flower. Double click to import it onto the mat, then click the plus sign to put it on its own layer.
More the rose flower over the base rectangle and enlarge it to a pleasing size. Don't worry if it is bigger than the background mat, we will fix that in the next step.
Make a copy of the background mat, and paste it in place to the layer with the flower. Then turn off the eye to the background mat layer.
Select all (use the button), and then click the Boolean Join button. The option that you will want is "Intesect". Click "Apply".
You now have the all the shapes needed to make the card. Move the flower shape away from the area that the background mat occupies. Choose Split (or Break) and place the flower on a different layer than the leaves.
Move the leaves down just a little. Open the eye on the background mat layer. Now select all and add a 1/8th" (0.1250) shadow to these shapes.
Select the shadow layer and break (we will be coloring them differently so they need to be broken). Click off these to de-select them and then draw a box around both the background mat and its shadow. Right-click and apply a texture.
I used a Texture form the Love is Sweet paper pack. (I actually resized the texture in Adobe Photoshop Elements so that it was smaller and would not tax my system resources. If you want to learn how to do this, it can be demonstrated in another tutorial.)
If desired, scale the texture to a pleasing scale.
Notice that the texture is applied to both shapes. Remember that we will print the shadow shapes and cut the others. So if the textures do not line up perfectly it is not a problem. Apply a texture or color to the flower and the leaves.
I scaled the texture down to 40% for the leaves. You may not need to.
All that remains is adding the sentiment. Since this will be printed (not cut) it should be pl;aced on the shadow layer. The easiest way to do this to lock (or turn off the eyes) to the other layers and add it in. Size it as desired.
You are now ready to print out your design.Turn off the eyes to all layers except the lowest (shadow) layer. Make sure "outline shapes" is NOT checked. Notice that all shapes are within the printer margins. Print this.
For cutting, load the paper onto the mat and into the cutter. Turn off the eyes to the bottom (shadow) layer and open them on all others. You are ready to cut! After cutting, just layer the pieces so they look like the card above and adhere with adhesive. You're done!
These steps are not written in stone - you can do things in a different order or in a slightly different way and get the same result but this should be a starting place.
To refresh your memory, here is the card that we are making (with some minor alterations).
And check the box
You should now have a boundary box that shows your printer margins. On the top and left side, these are almost the same as the "no-cut" zone boundaries, which is nice for me!
I plan to use a pre-made card base for this card, which measures 5.5 x 4" folded. If I allow for a 1/8" spacing around the sides, I will need a background mat (the pink in the above photo) that is approximately 3.75 x 5.25. So let's draw a box that size. Using Basic shapes, double-click on the square.
Now, with the lock open (green), change the size of the square to 3.75 x 5.25. Be sure to click enter to make the changes effective. I also realized I was on the "Contrast" setting, so I changed it to "green".
For the flower, I brought the flower in from the DB Floragraphy font. Import using the "Add font from File" button and choose DB Floragraphy.
Scroll down to find the rose-like flower. Double click to import it onto the mat, then click the plus sign to put it on its own layer.
More the rose flower over the base rectangle and enlarge it to a pleasing size. Don't worry if it is bigger than the background mat, we will fix that in the next step.
Make a copy of the background mat, and paste it in place to the layer with the flower. Then turn off the eye to the background mat layer.
Select all (use the button), and then click the Boolean Join button. The option that you will want is "Intesect". Click "Apply".
You now have the all the shapes needed to make the card. Move the flower shape away from the area that the background mat occupies. Choose Split (or Break) and place the flower on a different layer than the leaves.
Move the leaves down just a little. Open the eye on the background mat layer. Now select all and add a 1/8th" (0.1250) shadow to these shapes.
Select the shadow layer and break (we will be coloring them differently so they need to be broken). Click off these to de-select them and then draw a box around both the background mat and its shadow. Right-click and apply a texture.
I used a Texture form the Love is Sweet paper pack. (I actually resized the texture in Adobe Photoshop Elements so that it was smaller and would not tax my system resources. If you want to learn how to do this, it can be demonstrated in another tutorial.)
If desired, scale the texture to a pleasing scale.
Notice that the texture is applied to both shapes. Remember that we will print the shadow shapes and cut the others. So if the textures do not line up perfectly it is not a problem. Apply a texture or color to the flower and the leaves.
I scaled the texture down to 40% for the leaves. You may not need to.
All that remains is adding the sentiment. Since this will be printed (not cut) it should be pl;aced on the shadow layer. The easiest way to do this to lock (or turn off the eyes) to the other layers and add it in. Size it as desired.
You are now ready to print out your design.Turn off the eyes to all layers except the lowest (shadow) layer. Make sure "outline shapes" is NOT checked. Notice that all shapes are within the printer margins. Print this.
For cutting, load the paper onto the mat and into the cutter. Turn off the eyes to the bottom (shadow) layer and open them on all others. You are ready to cut! After cutting, just layer the pieces so they look like the card above and adhere with adhesive. You're done!
These steps are not written in stone - you can do things in a different order or in a slightly different way and get the same result but this should be a starting place.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
I have a winner!
I have a winner for my challenge! I have notified the winner and will be posting more later today.
My winner for the Valentines Day challenge (chosen through Random.org) is.....
My winner for the Valentines Day challenge (chosen through Random.org) is.....
....Julie, who said, "This is the first challenge I’ve ever done! As soon as I saw this image the phase came to mind, I wrapped the text around the heart with MTC, I love using it, I can spend hours playing with it!"
Congrats Julie. Here is her creation.
Great job and congratulations to Julie!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Assembly of treat bag
Someone was having some trouble with assembling the treat bag offered here. So here are some pictures to help with assembly.
1. After cutting, score the bag along score lines (marked with notches in the cut out). Do this to Side 1 and Side 2.
2. Using adhesive attach the flap from Side 1 to the main piece of Side 2. Do the same with the other flap. This will give you a rectangular cylinder like what you see below.
1. After cutting, score the bag along score lines (marked with notches in the cut out). Do this to Side 1 and Side 2.
2. Using adhesive attach the flap from Side 1 to the main piece of Side 2. Do the same with the other flap. This will give you a rectangular cylinder like what you see below.
3. To form the bottom, fold in the rectangular flap first, then the sides on top of it. You can use adhesive is desired where they overlap. The flaps coming together will form a slit (see arrow).
4. Take the last flap and slide the tab into the slit formed earlier. You can put a small amount of adhesive on this tab if desired.
5. This is what the bottom will look like when finished.
You do not need to use adhesive for the bottom unless you have something heavy in it. Hope that helps!
Baby Shower gift
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Frogs and Kisses Gumwrappers
Don't you just love these cute gum wrappers? I made them up for a friend of mine who is not well, so that visitors could have a piece of gum. I want to make them into a bouquet of some sort (like a candy bouquet) but for now they are just in a treat jar.
I altered the wrappers so they would have a personal sentiment from her.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Treat bag - just in time for Valentine's Day!
Just in time for Valentine's Day I have a little treat bag for you. I sized it so that it could be made with 8.5 x 11 paper, but you can always enlarge it if needed.
I used the Lettering Delights Monster Love paper pack (image is clickable) to make these. This is included in the free Valentine's bundle from Lettering Delight.
If you don't want to pick up the set I have included a polka dot texture (fill) that I designed myself included in the MTC file.
Here's the treat bag that I made. The side can be folded inward like a briefcase or left unfolded - your choice! IMPORTANT: there are 2 pages to this file and they are different, so you have to print out both of them in order to make the bag. Enjoy! (click image below to get the file)
I hope to be back tomorrow with more (and hopefully better) pictures.
I used the Lettering Delights Monster Love paper pack (image is clickable) to make these. This is included in the free Valentine's bundle from Lettering Delight.
If you don't want to pick up the set I have included a polka dot texture (fill) that I designed myself included in the MTC file.
Here's the treat bag that I made. The side can be folded inward like a briefcase or left unfolded - your choice! IMPORTANT: there are 2 pages to this file and they are different, so you have to print out both of them in order to make the bag. Enjoy! (click image below to get the file)
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