Tuesday 6 October 2015

My Grandma's Teacups: Turn your Cricut Explore into a Paper Doll Cutter

So it's no secret that I am totally crazy about Prima Marketing's line of Julie Nutting Dolls Stamps. It seems I talk about them allot....ok...really really allot. But they are so fun to make. Some of my friends were less then excited about the stamps because they did not enjoy spending the time cutting out the multiple layers that make these dolls come to life. This diminished my joy somewhat as I wanted everyone to love them as much as I do.

Then one afternoon it struck me (not literally) but I figured out that if we eliminated the fussy cutting around the various layers the ladies could just enjoy the process of stamping and colouring the dolls. Bravo, I have my moments of brilliance. So I set to work creating cut files for my Prima Dolls. Some people will be aghast that I would suggest this. I am aware that some people will use this technique for evil and do the print then cut but I need to remind those folks not to get too excited because that feature only works on white paper. So follow along with the doll stamp of your choice. It;s a long process but you will only need to do it once and then you will have years of enjoyment dressing up your creations.


So the first step is to get an image of your stamp:

You could be very ambitious and scan your stamp or you can just google the stamp and borrow an image to use.


Now then, time to get to work. Log into your Cricut design space and start a new project.





























Select all the layers for your doll and bring them into your design space. You may notice a few extra specks you missed when erasing. Take a moment and clear them up using an extra shape and the slice tool. This also works to straighten up any wiggly parts that you did not get a perfect image of. ( I get this allot because I have shaky hands). Remember to work with a duplicate of the piece you are working on so that you can have a fallback if something goes wrong.








The rest of the tutorial will be in the post on Thursday! 

Go Ahead, Its already posted