Regular readers may recall me bemoaning the fact that my Cricut died. In trying to sort out what the problem might be before rushing out to get a new one with old firmware so I could use SCAL, I went through a rigorous (not really) testing process, checking all the various plugs to see if I could identify one that was faulty. I thought I had narrowed it down to the power supply, so I had DH bring mine along to a crop where someone else had one working. Plugged in the power supply and mine turned on. Finding a replacement power supply was not easy, unless you wanted to pay a bundle for one on eBay. I contacted Provo Craft international support (even though my machine was VERY old) and they said No problem – we’ll send you a new one! Cue Happy Dance 1. Weeks went by and no plug. I emailed them again to say What’s up? and they told me they were out of stock of the UK plugs, no idea when they might be in. After seeing A Little Hut last week I was itching to test something out. I emailed Provo Craft again. They confirmed the plugs were in stock and after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing over me making a new support ticket or them simply acting on the existing one from last year, they confirmed they would be sending a new plug. Missed a FedEx delivery a couple of days ago but when they re-delivered … Happy Dance 2!
Yay! Now you may wonder what this all has to do with A Little Hut. If you saw Sunday-someplace-else, you know she makes wonderful cutting files – I adore her paper quilt and the Project Life filler cards. But I am a DIY gal, and if I think I can figure out how to do something myself, I’ll always give it a go. And I knew there was the function in Intaglio to Save As .svg. That turned out not to work as I hoped (SCAL can only handle .svgs that are vector graphics) but creating in Intaglio, converting to an image, then opening it in SCAL and doing the auto trace worked a treat! Left see the designed image and right see the cut-file in SCAL.
And cut, then backed with coloured card:
Really happy with how it turned out. Now, people who know Illustrator or Inkscape will surely scoff, but I don’t and while I have looked at both I see no reason not to use what I have, and know, if I can. Is it as powerful? no. But I KNOW Intaglio pretty well by now and as this is not something I plan to do a lot of, it is nice to quickly and easily test the process and end up with something I really like at the end without spending hours learning a new process.
If you like mine, do go to ALH (blog for info with a linked shop where you can buy stuff) and see hers – they are just fab.
