Design Space 3: Upload Images with Drag and Drop

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I think the ability to upload images to the new Cricut Design Space 3 by drag and drop is probably the thing I like the most about the updates so far.

I have so many SVG files on my computer but haven't uploaded them to Design Space until now because of how long it used to take in DS2.

I mainly use my iPad for cutting since my main computer is not in my craft room.   I usually just use my desktop for uploading, although I do like how the new DS3 seems a lot like the iPad app.  

I have a folder full of free SVG files that I downloaded from Birds Cards a couple of years ago when I first upgraded to the Cricut Explore from the Expression2.  

  

The new drag and drop feature makes it really easy to upload files to Design Space 3.  

Click on the Upload Image button - it lists the types of files that you can add.

The Drag and Drop screen will open, select your file and drag it into that box.

Your image will show up on this screen -  I added in tags to make it easier to search.  

Then hit save...

And then your image shows up in the Recently Uploaded Images section.

Nice and fast.  As I do this I am also dragging and dropping into Silhouette Studio Designer Edition, which I run off of an external hard drive with my Mac Mini to save space.  I've saved my zipped files in my OneDrive account and am deleting the copies off of my hard drive as I upload to the software. 

Bash My Stash: Title page for 2001 Album

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I've been doing a lot of scrapbooking lately and so I haven't been posting much.  I've managed to almost complete my album for 2001 that I started mid-February.

I've done over 30 pages so far, just a few more to go.  I have been doing the layouts and then going back and adding my journaling and cutting all my titles with the Cricut all at once.  It seems to work best for me that way, I've been getting way more done since changing to that system.

I joined the Bash Your Scrapbook Stash Facebook Group and that has also really motivated me. Since going through my craft room and doing some reorganizing for better flow I've been able to go to my older papers and embellishments and have been using up quite a bit of my stash.

I've been saving this Stampin' Up Razzleberry Lemonade paper for years, I love the colors but for some reason never cut into it except to make one card.

I found this photo of a sunrise that I had taken after we had moved and the Razzleberry Lemonade paper seemed a perfect match. I paired it with another photo that I had taken of the view off of our back deck from the townhouse that we had been renting before we bought.   I decided that this would be the title page for my 2001 album and since we moved in February of that year I figured that the "out with the old" title was a fitting theme for the book.

My journaling came out crooked but my hands have been really sore lately and so I was having a bit of trouble with the writing.  I could use the printer but I really do prefer to have the journaling done in my own writing, good or bad.

All the Cricut cuts were done using the iPad app and my Cricut Explore.   The title is cut using the Augenblick font. The doily is from the Edge to Edge cartridge and the tab is from the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge .


Here is the sketch that I used for inspiration:

Title Page for 2000 Scrapbook using Bella Blvd Molly Collection

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I realized that I haven't added any recent projects to the blog in the past couple of weeks.

I've been spending a lot of time in my craftroom lately and finally finished my albums for 2000.
I ended up splitting the year into 2 books because one was just too thick with all the extra Flip Flaps™ that I included.

I was able to get a matching album in the CTMH clearance section, so I have both in the Slate Circle post bound album and I changed out the posts that are included with the album to smaller 1" posts so all the pages are laying nice and flat.

I've also started on my 2001 album, which won't be as thick since we didn't have as many pictures printed for that year.  

Here is the title page for my 2000 album:

I chose a couple of leftover photos that didn't have a theme but were taken at the beginning of the year.  My son is a clown and I have lots of pictures of him making faces for the camera.


For this layout, I used a free sketch that I downloaded from Scrapbook Generation and the Bella Blvd Molly Collection.

I created the two titles in the Cricut Design Space App using the Augenblick Font.  

I love how intricate the cut is using my Cricut Explore.   The title was cut out of plain Black cardstock and I added some shine with my CTMH Clear Shimmer Brush.  I also applied it to the Thin Cuts Hearts at the top of the page.


Products Used:

• CTMH White Daisy Cardstock
• CTMH Black Cardstock
• CTMH Teal Shimmer Trim
• CTMH Shimmer Brush—Clear
• CTMH Thin Cuts—Hearts
• Bella Blvd Molly Collection - Papers and Embellishments

Cricut Design Space App Now Has Offline Capabilities

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Cricut just announced yesterday that they would soon be releasing a new version of the Design Space App for iOS and I'm happy to say that I was able to update my iPad this morning and go offline with it!!

This is such a great feature, whether you want to design on the go or if, like mine, your wifi connection isn't the best and you want to be able to cut offline with your Explore.

Here are some of the basic steps to help you get your new App ready to cut offline.
 
I took some screenshots as I logged in and downloaded some images and fonts for offline use.

I updated my app and logged in just like I would normally do.

Clicking on the 3 lines shows all the different categories of Make It Now Projects and just above that is My Projects in the Cloud (anything I have ever designed and saved) and a new category called My Projects on this iPad.

I clicked on the new category, My Projects on this iPad and 

since there was nothing there I chose to create a New Project.

Then I searched for my new CTMH Flower Market cartridge.

Once my cartridge loaded, I selected a few images and they showed up along the bottom of my screen.  I then had the option to Insert them into my project, or I could Download Selected.  

I clicked Download Selected and those three images now show as Downloaded instead of Purchased.

Still online, I inserted the 3-D Rose image that I had just downloaded.

I noticed the squares on my grid were quite small so I went into settings and turned the Metric Units off.  The App always defaults back to metric when I update since I live in Canada.  I prefer to use Imperial when I am crafting.  

I decided to save this new project to my iPad so I can go back and cut it 

offline when I get out to my craftroom.  

After I selected Save, I was given the option to Save to the Cloud or to Save on this iPad.

I named my project and then selected Save on this iPad.

Now when I go back to the Project Menu and select My Project on this iPad my new project shows up.

Offline, my project is ready for me to cut!

After downloading those few images and saving my first project I decided to download some fonts to my iPad.

I selected the Text icon at the bottom of my Design Screen.  

Once the font list loaded I hit Select in the upper left-hand corner.

Then I got the Manage Fonts screen and could scroll up or down and tap on the fonts I wanted.

As soon as you tap on a font then the Download option shows on the upper right.  

You just tap Download and your fonts are saved to your device.  

I turned my wifi off and when I select the Text icon my downloaded fonts are showing in the list! Just tap the one you want to use and it works just like it would in the old online version.  

Another option for downloading images:

When you are choosing images to download you can add them individually like I did above, but there was also another option.  Before you tap on the images you will see a Select Visible icon to the bottom left of your screen.

I tapped on the Select Visible to see what would happen....

All the images that are on the screen showed up in the bottom bar.

I tapped on Download Selected and all those images downloaded to my iPad.   

Great option if you want to quickly download lots of images.

When you are in the App, if you tap on the little man at the top and select About, then What's New it will take you to a screen with some basic instructions about downloading and saving to your iPad.  

I can't wait to play with it some more and cut offline!  I will post more as I go! 

Design Space App How-to & Sizing Cheat Sheet for the New All Occasion Box Cards Cricut Cartridge

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 This morning I made the Thanks A Bunch Card from the new All Occasion Box Cards Cricut Cartridge that was released earlier this week.  The cartridge is by Lori Whitlock and has 30 All Occasion Cards with coordinating envelopes.

 It was pretty easy to put together once I adjusted the sizing in my Design Space App.   All the images needed for each card are grouped together - including the envelope.

I have a few other cartridges that come like this so I thought I would put together a How-to for re-sizing with the Design Space App.

 The handbook has this card sized at 5.5 inches high.

Here's the project right after I selected it in Design Space.  It came in really small and the measurements shown are for all the items grouped together not the card base. 

Leaving everything grouped together, I opened the layers panel and started hiding all the pieces that I didn't want. 

  The layers panel to the right shows everything hidden except for the card base.  

By selecting the edit icon, I can see the current size of the card base.   

Here I've changed the height of my card base to the 5.5 inches shown in the handbook. 

Opening the layers panel again, I bring back all the images that I had hidden.  

Here is the final size of the grouped project.

I can see by the guidelines that my card base is sized correctly at 5.5 inches tall. 

I assembled the flowers and Mason jars then folded the piece by following the picture in the assembly section of the handbook.    This is a really new cartridge (I bought the digital version) and the only place I ran into a bit of trouble was the front flower stems.  I had to cut the bottom piece in order to line up my stems, it was just a bit too wide. Then I covered it with another strip of green even though it gets hidden.   The actual size of the stems was perfect so I figured it was just a bug in the software and Cricut will update it when they catch it.  

The instructions were pretty easy to follow - if I was going to do this card again I would cut an extra tall piece of patterned paper to cover the back too.   You can also add additional items if you like the box to be really full.  There are tons of great box card ideas on Pinterest.

The box folds flat to fit into the envelope.  

Perfect fit!

Finished card and envelope - I added a bit of bling to the heart on the Mason Jar.  

I love how it turned out - such a fun cartridge!

Here is a Sizing Template for the All Occasions Box Cards for Design Space.  

 If you look at the size for this card you will see that it is exactly the same size that I ended up with after going through the steps.    You can use the steps above for any card in Design Space that includes an envelope - that way your images stay sized together and if you are using an SVG that isn't from Cricut you might not have a handbook or instructions to go with it.

Products Used In This Project:

Pink Paislee - Hello, Sunshine floral patterned paper

Rhinestone from my stash

Close To My Heart Products Used:

Ruby Cardstock

Hollyhock Cardstock

Canary Cardstock

Glacier Cardstock

White Daisy Cardstock

In Canada? You can purchase these products on my CTMH website:

http://nancyhelmer.ctmh.com

Or start your own CTMH business for just $149. 

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Flatten A Cut Image to Print Then Cut with Design Space iPad App

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I posted a few weeks ago about the update to the Cricut Design Space App with Print Then Cut now available to use with the App.  I didn't have a printer set up in my craft room but I found one on sale at Best Buy with AirPrint and have it all set up now.  

The cheapest printer I could find - on sale for $30.

I needed some tags when I was wrapping gifts so I chose the Holiday Gift Tags from the Make It Now section in Design Space.  These tags were set as cut files in the software but I was able to change them to print - a great feature when you want to make something fast.   I didn't want to have to glue all those layers together.

So here I have opened the layers panel so you can see how each tag has the images grouped together.  I've also selected the Actions icon at the bottom and just above it shows the different actions I can do to my selected image.  I love that you can highlight the image just by dragging your finger around the image. 

In this screen shot, I have highlighted the Flatten Icon - you can see to the right in the layers panel that the image layers are highlighted in grey and show the scissors beside it for the original cut file.

Here is my screen right after I touched the Flatten icon.  

You can see in the upper right corner that all the different layers have been flattened into one image with a printer icon beside.  My image is now ready to Print Then Cut.

All three tags are ready to Print - I just have to tap the Send to Mat icon at the bottom right.

Here is my Mat screen and I've set the number of images that I want at the top left.  

I just have to tap the Print icon to send the image on the mat to my printer.

Printer options screen - you need an AirPrint printer to work with your iPad or iPhone.

Here I've selected my printer and picked the number of copies I want.

I print out the tag sheet then hit the Go icon.

Ready to cut - I've loaded my mat into the machine, the Cricut Explore will read the registration marks 

and then cut each tag out.   

 It was pretty quick and I was happy not to be gluing layers together and it saved me a trip to the store.  I'd rather make them myself with supplies that I already have.