Cricut Design Studio Tips and Hints

In my last post I pointed you towards a great site to help you get the most from your Cricut design studio. Find it here.

The woman behind it, Brandi Gore Dickerson, is an expert at design studio and has over 10 years of scrapbooking experience. In my quest to bring you more information I searched for more hints and tips from Brandi and came across this informative article she wrote. Enjoy.

You finally purchased the Cricut Design Studio software. Most likely your next question is, "Now what do I do?" Here are seven things you need to know to jump start your learning of the program.

You can design with all of the cartridges, but you can only cut with the ones you have. Cricut Design Studio has every available cartridge loaded into the program. You can create all kinds of cutting files with any cartridge they offer. While that is fun for experimenting, just remember that when you go to cut the Cricut will ask you to load the specific cartridge used.

You can use more than one cartridge in a cutting. The options are endless. Bring letters and images from any cartridge into the cutting you are designing. When you are ready to cut, the Cricut will ask you to load each cartridge you used.

Connecting letters together to form one cutting is referred to as welding. In order to weld letters together it is important to remember to check the welding box for each individual letter or image. Another interesting tidbit about welding is that it removes any scorelines on the image.

You can use cut files from other Design Studio users. If you are low on creativity or time, your best solution is to use a file designed by someone else. There are Cricut Design Studio users that freely share their designs and ideas. The best starting point would be the message boards at the Cricut website. There you will find links you can follow to cut files all over the web. Simply download the file to your computer and the open it in the Design Studio.

You need to get updates to the Cricut Design Studio at the Cricut website. The updates not only fix any bugs in the program, they also add the latest cartridge releases for you to design with.

When previewing a cut, if it is welded together, the cutting lines will be in a bold line. If an image previews as a solid color then it is not welded. It is easy to miss checking the welding box on a letter as you are creating, and this is a sure-fire way to make sure that none of them are missing.

You can use several layers when creating a design. For example, If you are creating a shadow for an image you need to open a new layer just for the shadow. Otherwise, when you go to cut it will cut the image and the shadow at the same time using the same paper. When previewing, the user has the option as to whether or not other layers show through to the one they are working on.

Brandi Gore has been in the scrapbook industry for 10 years. She teaches classes and does custom scrapbooks for others. Her knowledge of the Cricut and the Cricut Design Studio software has positioned her as an expert in the field. Are you looking to learn the ins and outs of the Cricut Design Studio? Check out her book and videos Cricut Design Studio: The Missing Manual

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brandi_Gore_Dickerson

More Cricut Design Studio help is out there

After my last post regarding how to get the most from your Cricut design studio in which I introduced you to this website, Learn how to use the Cricut design studio, I started to wonder if there were any alternative products/instruction on the subject of Cricut design studio.

I must say that I didn't find much that I felt was worth mentioning but I was determined to find at least one alternative. I hate not having choices. Even though vanilla ice-cream is delicious the whole ritual is made infinitely better by the fact that there is chocolate Brownie flavor too... just in case!

After spending Saturday night (sad) trawling the web I managed to come up with a few alternatives. I'm only going to mention the one for now as the others warrant a closer inspection first.
It is my aim to help you get the most from your Cricut, Cricut design studio and other scrapbooking products and I don't want to just throw any old rubbish your way.

The other site that I thought may be of help in getting the most from your Cricut design studio is, Taming the green bug / Stunning designs with the Cricut .

Please provide us with feedback on your thoughts of these two sites.

The more informed we are the more creative we will become.

Design Studio: The Missing Manual

A few months ago I spoke about Cricut design studio by Provo Craft and just how brilliant it was.
I'm yet to hear anybody disagree but a few comments I've heard include "I've mastered the basics of Cricut design studio, but how do I progress from here" and "I've figured out how to do so much with Cricut design studio but I know it can do so much more". "Where can I find help?".

The truth is it can do so much more. With the proper guidance you will have mastered Cricut design studio in no time at all leaving you to design and create instead of puzzle and pull your hair out.

"So where can I find this mystical guidance" you ask. "I've read the manual and apart from the basics I'm on my own" you cry.

Not so.. A lady called Brandi Gore Dickerson has finally let the Genie out of the Cricut design studio bag. She is a veteran scrapbooker, Cricut design studio teacher and she has put together a comprehensive manual, video and screenshots package that will "step by step" enable you to get the most from your Cricut design studio.

Anyway, enough babble from me. Click here and see for yourself.

Enjoy your new found skills.