Hide Countour

A few years ago I discovered a feature on Cricut called "Hide Contour."  It has changed my life!!  This week, for design team duties over at Stampin' Buds, I wanted to show you how it works.  I have a Cricut Explore, so I use Design Space.  Although my screen shots will be different, the Cricut Craft Room has the same feature if you have an Expressions or other machine that uses that online design service.

First, let me show you the card, then I'll show you how I did it.

Don't you just love those zig-zag cut outs???  Here's how I did it.  Start by inserting the overlay from p. 44 in Artbooking.  For those of you who use the search feature, it's #M3CEB3.

Make sure the overlay image is "selected" before you right click on your mouse.  The drop-down list includes the "Hide Contour" option.  Click on it.  It will change the image to look like this:

Now you have to spend some time clicking everything you don't want to show up.  I started with the outside  rectangular cut and then added everything but three of the zig-zag lines.  The contours that you have eliminated from your cut will have a lighter blue line around them (which didn't photograph well enough to show you the difference).

When you are done, it will look something like this:

Before I cut, I lengthened the width and shortened the height so I got a 1"x 5" image.  I then positioned it on my mat between the 1" and 6" grid lines, clicked on "Select All" and then did another right click with my mouse.  The same drop down list appeared, but this time I selected "Attach".  This secures the image to the mat so, when you go to cut, it stays where you put it when you click "Go".  At least it's supposed to.  Cricut updated the Design Space software and there are still some bugs being worked out, but I was able to maneuver the image on the "Go" page.

I then laid my card on the mat so the bottom edge of the card front was at the 3/4" vertical mark, the top fold was at the 6 1/4" vertical mark, and the left edge was at the 1/4" horizontal mark before cutting.  Although this is a little time-consuming, it's not difficult.

Here's a picture of the inside with the strip from the "Brushed" paper pack:

For those of you with a keen eye (and a memory long enough to remember what the card front looks like after this long), you'll note that there's a small ring of Canary in the center of the Pixie flowers.  Another trick I picked up a few years ago was using items I have on my desk to stamp with.  That little circle of Canary is from the bottom of a Sharpie marker.

One last trick before I let you go...  To get the leaves to tuck beneath the flower images, I left myself room along their bottom edges when I stamped them on a separate sheet of white cardstock.  When I cut them out, I left about a 1/4" tail so I could glue that under the flowers.  The larger leaf image is designed to allow you to tuck it "behind" the flower image on a one-layer card, but I wanted the dimension of more actual layers of paper.

Please leave a comment if you've any questions and be sure to check back for an answer.

If you've never tried the "Hide Contour" feature on your design software for your Cricut, I highly recommend you check it out.  Combined with the "Weld" feature, the images on a single cartridge expand from "great" to "mind-blowing"!

Until next time,
Becca

Cricut® Artbooking Collection	Brushed Paper Packet	Have a Happy Day	Whisper Exclusive Inks� Stamp Pad	Pixie Exclusive Inks� Stamp Pad
Canary Exclusive Inks� Stamp Pad	Pear Exclusive Inks� Stamp Pad	1" X 3 1/2" My Acrylix® Block	2" X 2" My Acrylix® Block	12" X 12" White Daisy Cardstock
5 1/2" X 4 1/4" White Cards & Envelopes, Value Pack	3-D Foam Tape	Non-Stick Micro-Tip Scissors	Bonding Memories� Glue Pen

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