What’s Up (Q&A)

Working with Fabric!

Fabric, like a lot of different materials out there has found a small place in the paper crafting industry. Fabrics can add a really nice touch to your favorite cards, layouts and dimensional projects. We love anything we can cut with our Inspiration. It’s all about ease of use and the ability to create custom designs using our favorite materials and textures. Crafting really is all about freedom of expression and like I’ve seen with many of your projects, it’s not just limited to the paper world. There are a lot of really neat projects created using fabrics, acrylic, vinyl and even wood veneer. I can tell from Loris question that she is like a lot of you out there, and ready to take on the next project using a different kind of medium.

Saving Images to the Image ...

The Inspiration Studio software makes the process of viewing saved cutting files a lot easier with the ability to download those images directly to the image gallery. I love the fact that I can view my images through the gallery and then simply click on the image to import it to my page. Since it’s so easy to view CDs you’ve saved to the gallery, a lot of you want to know what other ways the gallery can benefit you—mostly with the thought of being able to save your own designs. I’ve put together some helpful suggestions here to help answer Alisha’s questions as well as a lot of others here in the Craftroom.

Upgrading to Windows 7

I didn’t think it would hurt to touch on a topic that we’ve visited about in the past. The gang here at Pazzles has been getting lots of questions in the last two weeks in regards to Windows 7. Tax season is here so a lot of you are like me, buying something you’ve been waiting for all year with your tax returns. So many of you are excited about purchasing new computers with Windows 7. I’ve been fortunate enough to upgrade my computer here at work to Windows 7. With anything there are adjustments, but the benefits are fabulous! Here’s a question Jean had when upgrading her computer:

Cuttin’ it Up in the ...

I love making images that have a lot of layers. I’m huge on silhouettes and the look that those images give my projects, but dimension is fun too. I’m big into chalking all those pieces so that when I finally put my project together, everything really pops. In fact, a lot of the images in our Image Library have multiple layers. As you can see Mindy has a great question for cutting paper piecing images.

Grouping & Ungrouping your Images

Even though I’m a part of the designing team for our images, I still get excited every week to see what the group members have created for the image library. We all have our own individual style so it’s nice to be inspired by someone else’s creative process. I know that sometimes those images can come with a lot of little pieces. Cindy had a great question about what the group and ungroup function does in the software.

How to Pause the Tutorials

I’m always happy to hear from craftroom members who let me know how thrilled they are with the wonderful tutorials that we offer. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or a mastered Creative Cutter user. There is always something new to learn! I’ve been watching a few of them myself and I’m always excited when I find something new that I didn’t know about before. I’ve gotten a lot of thank you emails letting us know what a great job we are doing and to keep up the good work. I tell everyone that Chris is a natural born teacher so she does an excellent job at putting those together. A few of you have asked the same question that Jill has so this was a great topic for the week.

Software Shutting Down During a ...

There are so many factors that can affect the Inspirations performance. They can range from your computing environment, the amount of programs installed on your computer, and what kinds of programs you have running in the background of your computer. When I received this email last week I thought it was perfect, and hopefully can explain some of the reasons that you will experience problems with the software shutting down while you’re creating your project.

Color Fill and Circles

I wanted to thank everyone who responded to my email at whatsup@pazzles.com. I received some really great questions that I’m eager to get to in the weeks ahead. However, I promised to respond to Vickie Kee’s question below since this was not only a great topic, but something I’ve been asked about in the past. This just goes to show that there’s a lot of people out there with the same question, so don’t be afraid to ask!! Keep the emails coming, I look forward reading all of them!

We Want to Hear From ...

I love hearing from all of our Inspiration users with questions, and comments about our products, images and tutorials. Your feedback always means the most to us, because everything we do is for you! It is always great when you can read a post or a blog that answers some of the questions that you may have had. I decided to change some things up with the What’s Up Wednesdays and make this blog all about you and your questions. Every WednesdayI will post a question that I’ve been asked and then respond to the question right here. This is a great opportunity for you to submit some of the questions you may have.

“Zoom” in to Take a ...

The set of tools that I tend to use the most are the Zoom Advanced Tools. While they don’t play a huge role in creating the project, they help while you’re making changes or need to zoom in and out of your image. Here is a run down of what those tools do.

Learning about your Media Settings

Regardless of your skill level when it comes to working with your Inspiration, there is always something new to learn. Like I mentioned last week, it’s easy to get used to doing something one way, even if it is the long way. I think regardless of what we’re talking about in our lives that can happen. Thank goodness for the GPS getting me to my destination and calculating a shortcut to get there. I still take the long way, even when I know it may not be the fastest way. The GPS is helping me with that though, and now I’m not so afraid to find a new route. Like most people I guess, once I find something that works, I just stick with it. I’ve gotten pretty good about knowing what pressures work well with different papers. I have a bit of an advantage here at Pazzles, because we tend to purchase the same papers (we love Worldwin Colormates paper). I always know what pressure will work best with our paper supply. However, it would be nice to remember, and save those cutting calculations as far as pressure, speed and blade length go, just like my GPS!

I Love Shortcuts!

I love shortcuts, and when it comes to the features in your Cutting Control Panel the software gives you a lot of great shortcuts. It’s easy to get caught up in doing things the long way, because you become accustomed to the process. I’m definitely guilty of this. So I am going to give you a quick run through of some of the things you see in the Cutting Control Panel under the Advanced Options.

Installing Your Inspiration Studio Software ...

There are some pretty neat little Netbooks out on the market right now. One of the great advantages to one of these small computers is the ability to have a light weight, compact, computer that slips easily into small bags, purses and drawers. The biggest downfall to a Netbook is not having the ability to have a CD drive. That’s where those handy little jump drives come into play. Not only is a jump drive - also known as a memory stick - an awesome little tool to save your WPC files and pictures, but it can also help transfer your Inspiration Studio software to your Netbook. To follow these instructions you will need to know how to create folders on your computer, how to copy files, and have some knowledge of how to use Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer!).

Kiss Cutting Your Projects

Your color pallet can be an amazing tool to help create your projects. To use the Kiss Cut feature to its fullest potential and really maximize the use of your color pallet, I thought I would introduce some of the features you see there. This function can be used for so much more than just creating simply perforated fold lines for cards. Since we are creating images from a one dimension piece of paper, it’s sometimes hard to incorporate extra details. With the Kiss Cut feature you can create the illusion of ruffles in shirts, button holes, stitch marks and details in faces and animal images too.

Learning About Hand Vectorization!

I love hearing from new Inspiration users as well as our older customers too, telling me that with the New Year they are going to tackle new projects with their Inspirations and attempt to learn some new skills too! I can’t think of a better way to do this then with the help of our awesome community of Inspiration users here in the Craft Room. I’m always excited to hear from all of you, and even more excited to hear what’s on your agenda for 2010! The one task that many Inspiration users want to try out right away is the vectorization capabilities in the software. Believe me when I say that nothing is better in the Inspiration Studio software than vectorization!! To me, and I know to a lot of others out there too, it’s the most valuable tool in the software. The ability to take your favorite photographs or clipart and turn it into a cutting file is amazing. Whether you are doing this for your own projects, or gifts for friends and family, nothing can add a personal touch like a custom image or title can. We are the master creators when it comes to custom projects. With the Inspiration, anything is possible!!

Don’t Forget To Give Your ...

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I’m so excited! Even though we haven’t made it through Christmas yet, I’m already thinking about Valentine’s Day! The holidays just keep coming, don’t they? Before too much longer we will hear the birds chirping and welcoming spring time. Spring is always a great time to renew everything old and make it new—it’s like turning a new leaf for the trees, as well as for us! Even though it’s not quite spring yet, I still thought it would be a great time to talk about the Inspiration and any ‘spring cleaning’ that it may need.

How to open downloaded cutting ...

We hope you are having as much fun using our images from the library as we had creating them. I thought a good topic this week would be how to open a cutting file.

Inspiration Blade Holder

It’s pretty easy to forget all the work that little blade holder does in the Inspiration. When we think of cutting, we think of the entire unit. Which is true, but the blade holder has a lot to do with that process. Not only does it cut your projects, but it also plays a big part in the quality of those cuts.

Installing CDs into your Image ...

When we designed the Inspiration we also took the opportunity to redesign our software. Pazzles software has always been the leader in the industry, but we wanted to try and make it even better.

Loading your mat

I get an array of calls throughout the week with questions about the Inspiration. While some of the questions are easy—or easy to me because I use it almost daily. I have to step back and remember that there are a lot of Inspiration users out there with a very wide scale of expertise and knowledge levels. I think it’s interesting that just this week I got a question on how to load the mat. I thought to myself that it’s been almost two years since I started using the Inspiration. I also remember my first time using it here in our craft room and being a bit nervous.

Missing Tool Bars!

Have you ever accidentally closed a tool bar and cannot figure out how to get it back again? They are really easy to bring back up as long as you know where to look! Here’s how to bring up the different tool bars in your software...

Inspiration Sound

Every once in a while I get a question about why the Inspiration makes noise when it cuts and how to turn it off. We are busy people and often that means finishing up projects late at night while the kids are sleeping. I understand that having a whisper quiet machine can be very handy, but I wanted to take the opportunity to explain why the Inspiration makes sound as it cuts.

Windows 7

There has been a lot of chatter from Creative Cutter users about the new Windows 7 operating system, and if it’s compatible with your Inspirations. The answer that everyone has been waiting for is yes! You will not have any problems walking through the installation of the Inspiration Studio software. I have heard from several users who are currently up and running and very excited about some of the new features in Windows 7.

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