New free dingbat font for die cutters

I am proud to introduce 09 KutUps, a shapes font made especially for SCAL and other cutting machines that can cut truetype fonts. From the ground up this font was designed with SCAL in mind. Every shape has been optimized for cutting and even the font name and configuration have been chosen to make it easy to use with SCAL.

I have been the recipient of much generosity recently. For example, in 2008 I spent a month’s worth of nights in the Ronald McDonald House near where my son was hospitalized. If you enjoy using this font, I hope you will be generous the next time this fine organization asks for your support. Download the font here. Download the character map here. 09KutUps is free for personal and commercial use, but may not be sold or shared without my permission. Please also do me the courtesy of directing others to this blog post rather than to the mediafire link. And of course, I would love to hear your comments.

7/24/09 Update: This font has become very popular, and many of you have told me that you have honored my request that you make a donation to Ronald McDonald House Charities in return. Thank you so very much. My son had to be admitted to a hospital in another distant town for the last 2 weeks. Once again the Ronald McDonald House there provided support for our family.

Inkscape template for easy sizing

SCAL has a lot going for it, but one glaring flaw is how it handles the sizing of imported files. Basically you lose all your hard work at getting your Inkscape files at the right size and in proportion to one another when you go to import and have to find ways to correct for that once in SCAL. Hidden in these lengthy videos is a great tip for correcting this issue. I took the idea, refined it a little and made it into a 12 x 12 Inkscape template, which you can download here.

To use it, open the document in Inkscape (sorry, but it crashes Illustrator). Create your design to scale (leave a 1/4 inch margin to allow for the uncuttable area). You may add new layers but be sure to leave the original layer on at all times. Save as usual to Inkscape’s native svg format. Open a new document in SCAL. Set the default size to 12 inches (in the box on the Library Window). Placing the object at X:0, Y:0 is recommended but not required. Import your saved SVG.

The screen shots below show how using this template to create files for export to SCAL differs from a using a normal 12 x 12 document. When designing in Inkscape, both documents look like this:

In a normal document, the results of an import into SCAL…frustrating.

Using a true size template, the results are much more intuitive. Notice that it looks just like the outline in Inkscape.

Hope you enjoy using this template as much as I do. Thanks to Bob for the great idea.

Way Cool Tool for your Mac

 

I can not remember when I have been more excited about a new piece of software than I am about Skitch. Skitch is a free screen shot/image sharing and annotating tool that is just so well designed you will have to see it to believe it. When you do you will find yourself asking yourself, “Why isn’t all software like this?” It seems like plasq has not only created a whole new kind of application we didn’t know we needed, but thought of everything as they built it and created an interface sure to be envied (and hopefully emulated) across all computerdom. I’m (obviously) not ashamed to gush over this combination application/web service which might just be the exception to that “if it seems too good to be true” rule.

Sample uses for the crafter/blogger might include
-taking, annotating, sizing and organizing screen shots for use in blog or print/pdf tutorials
-ditto for webcam shots
-cropping, resizing and annotating digital camera photos or scans for posting on blogs or message boards
-facilitating multiple images in a single post on Cricut message board
-creation of dummy thumbnails for scut or svg files

A Free SVG Every Day

Eleanor at the Vendibles Blog has a very ambitious goal to create a free SVG for every day for a year. She’s about a month in and her track record of quality and reliability is impressive so far. These SVGs are designed for cutting and are trendy and adorable as you can see from a few examples below. Stop by and treat yourself.

Easter (basket) parade

I’m heavy into the technicalities these days, but some of you may actually be interested in making things. Easter is right around the corner (or is that, just down the bunny trail) and I want to give you a link to some couldn’t-be-easier files as well as some awesome inspiration on decorating your cutouts. 

ScrappingTable.com has updated her site with a bevy of free svg baskets like this one. (It’s a 3D basket like her Valentine ones, this is just the front view.)

I often visit Capadia Designs for the clever tips over there, but the wonderful designs always catch my attention, too. Pick up a free .cut file as well as detailed instructions for embellishing these adorable bunny baskets/candy holders.

Edit: here’s another nice Easter basket freebie

Disclaimer: This post does not imply an endorsement of the Easter Bunny. Let me know if you find some faith-based files I should check out.

In search of more elegant stencil fonts

You may have noticed that sometimes you want to use the negative space on your Cricut cutouts on a layout, craft or as a stencil for painting, embossing, screen printing, etc. Unfortunately, those pesky little trapped spaces like the triangle in the uppercase A (called counters) cause problems for negative space applications. You may also have noticed that most of the stencil fonts currently available scream military/industrial complex. Recently, I’ve run across a couple of posts that are addressing this problem, as well as giving instructions on how to mod any font you like for stencil use.

Michael Mandino and Patrick Davidson have a stencil version of Zapfino they call Stencilano available for download here.

Denise over at Denise’s Scrapbooking Room has a couple of stencil letter sets in SVG format.

Stencil letters from Denise

A giant source of public domain SVG files

Finding art that is legal to use can be frustrating, but here’s a tool for images you can know are OK for just about any purpose. The Open Clipart Library is a repository of SVG files started by the folks that develop Inkscape. It is a growing source for public domain artwork. If you have created original art in SVG format, you might consider uploading it to the open source community there. Some versions of Inkscape have an openclipart import/export feature in the file menu, making it even easier to download or upload images. The disadvantage of the OCL has been the lack of thumbnails and inefficient search tools. But now another site, clker.com has made the contents of the OCL available with thumbnails. The search function is still kinda quirky, but at least you can scan visually to find images that might be cut-friendly.

Screen shot of clker.com

Free Valentine .scut files at ScrappingTable.com

I found a great source for free .scut files and information about Sure-Cuts-A-Lot software. Check out ScrappingTable.com for many great Valentine cuttables like the basket shown below.

Free SVG silhouettes at UberPiglet

For those of you that were frustrated with the earlier vector packs because of the conversion required, you are going to love this site. Uberpiglet.com has an outstanding collection of silhouettes that are already in SVG format. All you need to do is open them up in Inkscape and save the image you want into a new document for import into SCAL.

Some examples include the Safari and Farm Animals set from Spoon Graphics:

and the Transportation Pack from D.A.T.:

There are 15 sets in all covering business people, dancing people, sports, florals and more. SCAL users are going to want all of them!

60 Free Vector Packs and how to use them

From Smashing Magazine comes this awesome listing of some of the best free vector packs available.

The Ultimate Collection Of Free Vector Packs

While the images are beautiful and many are suitable for cutting, few of them are in SVG format. Most are in EPS, PDF or AI format. Newer AI files, as well as PDFs will import directly into Inkscape. When you double click on an EPS file on a Macintosh, it will be converted to PDF automatically and open in Preview. From there all you have to do is save it and Inkscape will make it into an SVG.

Once you have imported an AI or PDF into Inkscape, click on the vector pack and begin ungrouping until you see dotted rectangles around each individual image. To work on an image, drag it off by itself or save it to a new document to do any necessary simplification, color separation or whatever. Once it has been saved in Inkscape you can then import it into SCAL for cutting.

Here’s an example, starting with one of the free vector packs from Designious.com

We open up the EPS version and save it as PDF in Preview, then open it in Inkscape and Ungroup

Then delete everything but the dolphin we were after and saved under a new name.