Resizing with the Gypsy

Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment on yesterday's post for Scott.  He was very proud of his project and I think he really enjoyed hearing from so many of you.

I practically wrote a novel yesterday with all of the bits and pieces to catch up with and I still didn't manage to include everything.  I wanted to share the "Flights of Fancy" file that I did for a reader request from George  (here is a LINK to the original post if you didn't see it the first time).

George had asked me for help with a design he had in mind and I created a .cut file in Design Studio on a 12 x 12 mat for a full page result.  He wanted a version in a smaller size as well - about 5 1/2 inches.

In order to resize the design, I moved it to the Gypsy which has the grouping ability that is missing from and has been one of the most requested updates for Design Studio. It is possible to group many designs in Design Studio.  I figured out how to do this right after the up and down nudging arrows were added to Design Studio in August of 2008.  Here is a LINK to a tutorial I prepared at that time - I called these "adjustable designs."  This is an old tutorial and I do a few things differently now when I make an adjustable design, however,  the basic information has not changed.

In order to keep items in the same group, you must plan out the sizes carefully.  It is not possible to keep the items all in one selection box once you have flipped or altered the proportions of a shape.  The latest update to Design Studio does allow you to select a series of images that have been rotated, altered or flipped by pulling a phantom box around them but if you resize the group the items will not stay in the proper relationship to the other shapes.

When I took the file over to the Gypsy, I could group the frame, the butterfly and all of my letter keys as one large unit.  Then it was quick and easy to resize the entire design to a card size.  My original design had three words that were grouped, a butterfly and a frame.  When I brought the resized file back over to Design Studio each letter was individual  - the word groupings are not retained.

There is also an issue with the welds when the file is transferred back to Design Studio.  The issue is the common welding in a frame problem and you need to "burp" the frame to take care of the inaccurate welds.

To "burp" the design, simply select the frame, copy it, delete it and paste it back again.  Now the welds will work and the cut will be complete.  The frames in this file have all been "burped" and are previewing correctly.

George had cut the smaller version and placed it in this display tray.  It seemed a bit too small so I have taken the file over to the Gypsy again, enlarged the frame to 8 inches square and brought the file back to be saved as a .cut file for non-Gypsy users.

Flights of Fancy (3 sizes)

If you make something with this file George and I both would love to see how it turns out!

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