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Welcome to PapillonDigitalDesign. Hope you get inspired by the projects, videos and files. Would love it if you could leave comments and become a follower. (Word verification is turned ON to avoid spam. Sorry for that inconvenience.) Would love it if you would also share your project here . Due to the fact that the blog has moved there maybe some broken links. Please try deleting the s after designs from the broken link and try the link as the new link is http://www.papillondigitaldesign.com/ Thank you for visiting.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Blob brush in illustrator CS5

I am so loving this blob brush in illustrator CS5. It came in cs4 and I so love this feature along with the multiple artboards. So totally worth upgrading to cs5. I am of course learning and  love the tutorials by Deke McClelland - lynda.com and also Laura Coyle - reneepearson.com. Both are such great instructors.
Especially with the new cutter when I try to convert dover jpg images from the cd to cuttable files - svg - just trace - expand and if there are open gaps or very thin lines - use the blob tool. (I usually trace while choosing the tracing options set with white not chosen)
I have the knk but remember in Ai to svg you need the fill set to color while the stroke should be 0 pts. So I alternate between the two while correcting and when I am happy I make most usually compound paths out of it - make sure the fill is set and the stroke is set to (no stroke) or 0 pt.

I just thought I would add some pictures to show what I was talking about. Here's the picture of a traced ai file. Note how the image is broken in some places of stem. So if I need to join I can manipulate the nodes in knk studio or older illustrator.




But if with cs5 it makes it so easy



So after using the blob brush and connecting I make sure I drop down or twirl open the layer and choose the particular layer I want which is the completed image




I then move the layer to a new layer (not necessary to do this way you can directly delete all the other layers but I like to do it this way) and then delete the other layer




After that I select the image and make a compound path




And then I make sure I fill it with color and set the stroke to none



In the beginning after tracing I usually like to set the artboard to 12 in by 12 inch. After all this I save the file as both ai and svg. Then I sometimes take it to either knk studio or MTC and play with it there like adding a card welding etc

for eg this is a  image I traced from dover ornamental fixed it and saved as svg


Then I took it to knk and made this square card




So I hope these images helps someone a little


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Sunday, May 22, 2011

All the tools

I finally got the pazzles distressing tool so now I have all the tools I want to play  - for knk - punch (knk), embossing (pazzles), engraving (cougar and knk )
But first I have to calibrate both the general and the laser so that I can start playing seriously.
The mat had to be deglued. I had to use googone to strip if of glue and then use aleene tacky over diluted to apply. It is now ready and hopefully this time the paper wil not stick so much. Krylon was a bad idea.
Zig or tacky is the way to go.

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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Square card 1

I have been playing with knk studio. Not able to go upstairs as I am sick - so I have not tested this out yet. But will share the file after I cut and check

The medallion is from dover. Here's the screen shot


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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Make the cut

Make the cut has a plug in for knk and so I have started looking at this program and wow - I love it especially the lattice feature , the rhinestone feature and most of all the layer feature. I have not yet looked at the print and cut but they now have 3 point registration.  Just love it! Wish it had the pen tool and a way to manipulate the nodes too. Right now I am using both softwares - shuffling! and converting etc etc. But if MTC gets nodes then wow!
 Where was I all this while that I haven't even looked closely at this program? Still love illustrator but woo hoo to this program!

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Monday, May 16, 2011

Film reel

I decided to make a fim reel/ Negative . I had long ago made one like this I had printed this along with photoshopped picture of my kid in a layout on a transperency. Actually this was a very first layout I ever made. So I thought I would make an  svg and knk file of it.

Here's the screenshot


Files are of course available when you click the respective tab under the menu bar.

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Friday, May 13, 2011

My first knk project

So I decided at last "To do"

One of my favorite quotes

      “I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try.” - Nikki Giovanni

So I decided I will start cutting with the blade instead of just using the test pen.
Have to rethink everything from loading mat , to setting blade depth to setting origin!! You are in control.
Definitely takes a while to master especially if you are used to cricut but all this gives you more range in cutting.  Take it step by step - think one thing at a time - play with pen to get the origin and loading mat mastered and then use the blade. Also watch lots of videos! Sandy's videos are so easy to understand and gets you jumpstarted.

So here's my first cut. Yep my own design - a medallion. I played with nodes and created the center petals and then altered the segments in a square and easy peasy a design. This on e was cut very small. The whole assembled piece is about 2 - 2/12 inches. I just used white cardstock and colored layers using sharpie - 4 layers all in all. So I am happy about intricate cutting.





But couple of things - I had to use a cricut mat as the krylon spray that came to make the mat is a bad idea. I should have used zig two way or diluted Alene over and over.

Another thing was I had inadvertently set the cutting /plotting default to cut 3 inches up


So watch those numbers. I changed the x to 0 and everything was alright.



So of course I have been playing with the software and here is another file screen shot




I will have the files to download in the tab. You can tweak it a bit if you want to cut it right.
The cupcake bottom was a pentagon with top cut off with ginsu knife. I love this. A little bit of tweaking and it will make such a good deepam for deepavali


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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Spring is in the air

Birds chirping reminds me of spring along with flowers blooming.






She was flying all over the place. I just wish that I could have got my composition a bit more ok - ie the bird to the left of the screen though I got him on top 1/3rd



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knk studio

So I have been playing with the knk sudio and I just love it. I decided to first begin playing and getting to know the software before starting to cut. Watching Sandy's videos gets you jump started. Always pictures and in this case videos make it easier than poring through the manual - though that is also advised. I really like Sandy's videos lol because I guess her thought process is so much like mine. I anticipate the question and there - there is an answer!
I will be cutting out these soon and will share files too as soon as I cut them. But here are some screen shots of my playing

labels

flowers


square flowers



ric racs


scalloped frames




a trifold card


and here's one using very very quick manual tracing (all about less than 2 mins)from a free template - jersey - poinsetta truffle box




And I have not even started on clip arts and box templates. This is so much fun!!


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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Jazz

This weekend my son and their school band attended and performed in a Jazz concert at a local high school. I took this huge Tamron lens - 70 - 200 f2.8 with me to take some pictures. This lens keeps acting up. This time  because it was dark I guess . Well I do not know the what's or why's but I could  not auto focus and had to resort to focusing manually . So the photos will not be as good and some may be even a bit blurry but on the whole they are not bad I guess.












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How I settled on knk cutter

I thought it would be helpful if I share why I now have a knk cutter sitting sleekly on a desk.
I wanted obviously a cutter where I could use my own designs so choice was vast - silhoutte, gazelle, lynx, knk 13" and pazzelle and even matless craftrobo.
All are good cutters. Silhoutte would do excellent for crops but cutting width was 8.5x 11. So that was eliminated as I wanted atleast a 12 x 12. Now craftrobo has made lots of improvement from it's initial launch. Loved the matless idea but it can cut only thinner material. Since I wanted chipboard it went off my list.
Pazelles and Gazzelle are both good. And you can find deals on both. Lynx is also great. But you do have a waiting time on it as the seller is not US based and have 1 distributor here in US. Lynx has one advantage as it is from same maufacturer as cougar and you can always upgrade their machines. They help ou upgrade I think.
The force of the machine for all the 3 are around 500. So if you want heavier force then it is knk or cougar.
Now I decided I would as well go for 24 inch so that left me with knk and cougar. I should say both are awesome machines and both the main support people Sandy (knk)and Dawn & Sherri (Cougar) are awesome woman who answered every question I asked and boy! did I have tons of questions.
So final points
1) knk is US based which is advantage in warranty and repairs and has been there for a long time.Cougar has only one dealer in US
2) knk so is readily available while cougar has a wait time
3) knk has lesser speed control settings than cougar.
4) knk like gazelle has the advantage of using markers etc without pen tool and knk can accept cricut blades holder , amy chomas holders, pazelle. I am not sure about cougar though I know cougar needs a seperate pen holder.
5) Cougar has lots of inventive attachments and some in future like foil etc. knk also has lots of blades and remember you can use almost any of the other cutters blades in here.
6) Cougar there is a wait time and supplies like mat etc are not readily available and there can be a waiting time whereas knk it is available from the dealers and other places as well mainly because they are US based and I guess have more than one dealer . I would advice for the first time when buying the knk machine itself to go through Sandy (iloveknk) as she is the one who gives lots of support. To me that support is worth it. Cougar of course you are going to go with Sherri and Dawn (Thymesgraphic). But after that initial you can get your supplies anywhere like paperthreads, pazzelles and even the local scrapstore  which has lots for silhouette.
7)Software - Both have dongleless software as it is. But in case you want to buy an upgrade you get dongled
knk comes with knk design studio which is good for cutting and designing basics as well and does not have cutting limits whereas signcut craft edition comes with cougar - have to use inkscape mainly and signcut craft edition has cutting limits 24" x 24". I have not looked at the shadow feature , engraving fill feature etc in signcut yet.
As for upgrades - dongled knk has acs studio while cougar has signcut pro.  The acs design studio in knk  is catered towards rhinestones.
Both machines work on scal and mtc and good news is MTC is working on a driver with knk as right of now cougar's drivers works well. MTC is also working on a 3 point registration marks for print and cut.
8) knk includes flat bed and has some deals extras wheras cougar does not have bolt tables as yet.
9)knk - yahoo group is the support mainly and paper threads has also a forum . black cat has forum

So I was sitting and thinking and thinking and sent my "thinks" to hubby and as you saw he took matters into his own hands and got me a knk maxx and I luckily ended up with acs eagle - major oomph in that force power ("yeah! the force was with me that day I guess" - yep I am a start wars fan!) as it has double the force of knk.

Now I am playing. Still not gone beyond the pen stage. Had a bit of back ache this week but I will be playing and posting.





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Monday, May 2, 2011

Lake Edna

We had gone trailing at Lake Edna last weekend.
Here are a couple of pictures I took


























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