Indie Art - Flaming Frame

I was convinced that I didn't "need" (or even want) the Indie Art cartridge - but then ACMoore put all Cricut on sale at 50% off this week so I took a good look at the items on the cart and decided that I could do some interesting things with them in Design Studio (and how could I resist for $25!).

Here is the first design that I have test cut - I called it a flaming frame but it actually makes me think of traditional Hawaiian quilts.

To create this design I simply sized one element to a bit less than the width of the mat and welded and flipped to create the four sides. In order to complete the welds at the corners, I needed to add a small shape as you can see in this screen shot



Adding this small shape fills the irregular areas which would otherwise remain and spoil the design - here is a slightly closer view which also shows the shape I used highlighted on the keyboard (to make things simpler I always try to use a shape from the same cartridge).



Once again - this cut requires a bit of patience as you remove it from the mat - I used my handy "super scraper" to help with the process



This design has some very small and thin points so be careful as you separate them from the background.



Here is another view of the finished cut - you can see how delicate these areas are



Here is the cut placed on a 12 x 12 piece of cardstock



I always like to see what the offcut looks like - in this case I think I prefer it to the frame!



Even the remaining center section is interesting and could be used on a page - so you could get three coordinating pages from the one cut.



The only bits not used would be these small interior pieces (and you could save these to put on a card!).



You could also place the center cut on the sheet with the outer frame with this result



The main difference between this and the cut is the elimination of the small bits at the four poles so those areas are more solid than in the original design.

Here is the mat after the cut was removed - this gives you an idea of what it would look like cut in white and place on a red background.



Here is the cut on a pink background so you can see how a more monochromatic scheme would look.



I hope you can use this design for one of your projects.

Flaming Frame