CRAFT NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR SILENCE? Bloop! I got you stunned, which means bringing something for you to contemplate!

In the real world where we’re living and likewise in the world of the Do-It-Yourself industry, we’re into, we always have the opportunity to do things to the fullest. At the same time, there’s a chance for us to do it. And as we have a life that cannot be multiplied to get extra lives, those two options mentioned above are the options that indeed shaken and awakened our wandering minds.

So are you going to take them or leave them? Oh! Oh! Oh! Got you again! I guess that sudden silence is reaching you for something big! With that, if the thought made you realize something or awakened a thing sleeping inside you for quite a long time, it is better not to press the “X” option on the right corner screen of your la-pi-top! Why? Because there’s a big M-O-M-E-N-T waiting for everyone, especially for YOU! And if you’re going to give a pass for this, guarantee you’ll miss 99.9% of your life!

The Big Awaiting Moment: Excavating a Tunnel of Craft Opportunities

More and more crafters for DIY-ing are now learning to live the crafting life! And I bet you won’t be running late for this! If the shadows of capital F-O-M-O or Fear of Missing Out keep hunting you or making you feel daunted lately… Guess what? You only need a positive affirmation of the capital Y-O-L-O in your life! So do you want some of it too? Fancy!

Step out, be not frightened, and get out of your comfort zone! A stance of YOU-ONLY-LIVE-ONCE will make you want to do things to the fullest, as if there’s no tomorrow for your craft-making! And lucky you, for your Y.O.L.O. MOMENT HAS FINALLY ARRIVED, and it’ll start right in your Cricut Design Space! Into the canvas where astounding artistry comes forth, this will route you to DIG UP ON THE TUNNEL OF THE CRICUT’S LAYERS PANEL. And affirmatively will give you the things you must experience in DIY-ing your design!

The Cricut’s Layers Panel as the Tunnel of Artistic Opportunities

Just like every cutting machine of Cricut that’s very convenient and easy to use, the Cricut’s Layers Panel acts the same too. Whether you’re still thinking about having your Cutting Machine before exploring this or whether you’re considering studying this first before you get your die-cut plotter. Either way, you can always begin to try and use this feature at the tip of your hands!

What is Cricut’s Layers Panel?

The Cricut’s Layers Panel resting inside the Cricut’s design software called Cricut Design Space is a digitalized tool for the Cricut Cutting machine. It can give you access to some tools for editing your cut file or designs. It can help you personalize your layouts in many ways, and its features give you the power to handle your images according to your liking or adjustments personally.

Where is the Cricut’s Layers Panel located in Cricut Design Space?

In your further readings, as you did your research about Cricut’s Layers Panel, you may encounter that this feature is also called the “Right Panel”. And suppose you’re wondering how they come up with a name for it. In that case, the reason lies behind which area of the Design Space is a specific tool is grouped for their interconnected function.

I’ll give you a quick tour of what you’ll see once you open the Design Space as you import or upload your image on its canvas for design customization. Here are the four areas that’ll welcome you.

1. Top Panel – consists of the Top Dark Grey Panel and the Top Light Grey Panel which are mainly responsible for editing and ordering elements to be applied to your image on the canvas area.

2. Left Panel – the area representing the “insert area” comprises options that enable you to place or replace projects, templates, images, shapes, and uploads on your canvas.

3. Right Panel –the area on the right side of your canvas, and it’s composed of different features letting you move, combine, separate, duplicate, or unify every element of your image.

4. Canvas Area – the part on your Design Space serving as a big blank sheet is where all the whimsical and colorful transformation of customized design takes place! It serves as the space or region in which you’ll see the overview and totality of the look of your design.

How does Cricut’s Layers Panel work in the Design Space?

Can’t visualize how Cricut’s Layers Panel works? Don’t worry because we got your back! As we’re done stamping a quick snap and vivid visualization at which area in the Cricut Design Space you could find the Layers Panel, we also want to do the same thing of how you could picture the way this Cricut’s tool operates!

Now, if we’re trying to understand how this tool works, remember when an image is imported on Design Space’s canvas, whatever color or combination of shapes there is on your design, each will be diversified or separated into its layer. For example, similar to a puzzle, we can combine or separate its pieces to obtain a complete look of an image. Or when we put make-up on our faces, we can add or decrease some adornments if we want everything to look simple or grandiose.

In conclusion, the same happens when Cricut’s layers panel works on our designs. We can put in our mind that in any image once it’ll be customized using the layers panel on the Design Space, a certain image consists of “layers” or “elements” possessing a single entity or fiber of an image layer that can be modified, changed its color, be separated and be united into one piece. Depending on the simplicity and complicatedness of our image layouts, it may maximize what this tool can do for our venture. In addition, too, there are some instances in some images that cannot be modified using the layers panel power because of their file type.

The Cricut’s Layers Panel as the Route to Successful Image Layering

As we go further, we can dig up more of the designing prowess a Layers Panel could have, and indeed we’re all mesmerized by it! Amazingly, it doesn’t only leave our mouths wide open. Still, it makes our minds branch out deeper while waiting for the perfect time to personalize our design layout with it!

Can we combine projects and create multiple Image Layers in Cricut?

So you think the Layers Panel can just do simple modifications like changing the colors in each layer of your designs? No! No! No! It’s not what you think but more than what you expect! Now to satisfy most of the intriguing queries for this blog and the question of the whole D.I.Y. community, the answer will be a vast Y-E-S, and here it is how!

First, when you hover inside Cricut’s Layers Panel, you’ll notice that it has many features which can help you make your design excellent. The main features that this tool contains consist of the functional tools commonly used in transforming a design into multiple layers of the image. Therefore, this can give you access to various features that can help you transform your single image into multiple layers and vice versa.

Secondly, combining Projects in Design Space is so super possible now! Unlike before, when Cricut’s Layers Panel could only offer basic functions to modify our image layers, now it can challenge even the complex ones. Since the Beta version of the Cricut Design Space software update has been done, it has made a big leap in improvement to its tools. It allows them to go along with the current toughness of other design software. Including in these one-of-kind enhancements and advancements is the usage of the strong tandem of the Design Space’s “Combine Tools” together with the Layer’s Panel making the combining of projects inside Cricut happen!

The Features of Cricut’s Layers Panel for creating Multiple Image Layers

Cricut’s Layers Panel, when it comes to creating multiple image layers, can offer you a variety of tasks for it to perform. This can give you access to its features not only to modify but also to enhance your designs. Depending on what you need, Layers Panel can open ways on how you’ll create multiple layers for your image, and they are all listed below.

• Group/Ungroup - allows one to group or ungroup multiple design layers, text, or images where they can be moved and sized out together or individually.

How to Group/Ungroup image layers:

• Select the images you would like to group, and on the layers panel, select group.
• Once done, the image layer can be sized or manipulated as one.
• To ungroup, select the images you want to apply this feature, proceed to the layers panel, and select ungroup. Once applied, the image layers can now be sized or controlled individually.

• Duplicate/Delete – enables you to copy and paste or delete image layers in a single step and permits you to add or decrease copies of the same image.

How to duplicate image layers:

• In your canvas, select the image you want to duplicate. Go to the layers panel and select Duplicate, then a new copy of the same image will appear on the project.
• To delete image layers, select the layers you want to delete, proceed to the layers panel, and choose delete. From there, a copy of the same image will be removed.

• Weld – Combines multiple layers of an image by eliminating overlapping cut lines forming new single-cut layers.

How to weld image layers:

• First, ungroup the images containing multiple layers you want to weld and have them overlap.
• From the ungroup images, select the layers you want to weld and select weld in the layers panel.
• Once done, the images you selected will be combined or merged.
• Slice – splits or separates overlapping layers into two.

How to slice image layers?

• Select two image layer layers you want to overlap.
• Click and drag the first layer to overlap it with the other layer.
• Select both chosen layers and go to the Layers Panel to click on Slice.
• After the image layers are in new forms, you may modify each layer or remove those you don’t need.

• Flatten/Unflatten- it merges an image with all other selected layers forming a single printable image layer, or it may separate image layers from a single image and form it into individual printable image layers.

How to flatten/unflatten image layers:

• Select and arrange two or more image layers you want to flatten.
• On the layers panel, click flatten and the images you selected will be merged into a new single layer of the printable image.
• To unflatten the image layers, go to the layers panel again and select unflatten, then the selected image layer will be separated and allow you to edit them individually.

• Contour – it may hide or show cut paths on an image layer.

How to contour image layers:

• If your image has multiple layers, ungroup them first.
• Choose the image layer you want to hide its cut path as the hide contour window will appear. Once done, close the window.
• As a result, the hidden cut paths will not appear as part of the design.

The Features in Cricut Design Space for combining Projects in Cricut

Just like what we mentioned and one that will satisfy the curiosity of our fellow crafters, the combination of projects in Cricut Design Space is super possible. And this can be done using Cricut’s Combine Tools in tandem with Cricut’s Layers Panel.

Cricut’s Combine Tools existed from the software update made by Cricut is found at the bottom side of the Layers Panels and is named “COMBINE”. This tool permits us to merge images from designing elements of two or more projects we have in Design Space, forming one new design over the Layers Panel. As it successfully combines several projects, this means images combined using this tool constituted several image layers one can furtherly modify and redesign along with the features that the Layers Panel could offer.

How can we combine projects in Design Space?

In continuation, Combine Tools are comprised of five features: WELD, UNITE, SUBTRACT, INTERSECT and EXCLUDE. These five features can give you five means to conjoin images from one project to another. You can use these features to combine projects with other projects saved in your Design space.

To give you more idea about the features inside combine tools, here is the description of how they process and do the merging projects on your design software.

1. The WeldFeature

Its existence in the Design Space has been around for quite a long time to help you with your customization. For example, you combine three different colors of ice creams for your design and want to cut them as sole-cutting layers instead. Now, the weld feature will allow you to cut those images not as images with three different colors but as a single cutting image layer. Therefore this weld feature allows the pieces of your design from one project to another to be attached or connected as one piece, especially when you cut them. Through this, the parts of the image or shapes you conjoined, whether two or three, now turn into a single cutting layer.

How to weld image layers:

On your canvas, select all three layers of images you have and proceed to combine them down at the layers panel. As you click the drop-down arrow, find, and select “weld,” the design software will combine all your layers into a single cutting image layer.

2. The Cricut Unite

The Unite feature is more like a cousin of the Weld feature, but a difference makes it distinct. For example, you have a group of heart images to cut as a single piece of the image. Instead of welding them and cutting them as they are, you may unite them all. In this case, Unite allows you to cut the pieces of your image into a single cutting image layer but still permits you to edit, manipulate, resize, delete, and rotate each shape or image layer. In addition, too, you may place different shapes or image layers by dragging and dropping them in the canvas on the Unite Header in the Layers Panel.

How to unite image layers:

On your canvas, select all of your images or shapes. Then, go to the combine option and click the drop-down menu to select “Unite”.

3. The Cricut Intersect

Cricut Intersect is a feature now available in Cricut’s Combine Tool, allowing you to put numbers of image layers to overlap inside another image. For example, you have an image of a human’s face in silhouette, and you may want to add a unique effect on the image’s surface by placing a photo with a leopard imprint. In this representation, you may use Cricut intersect to overlap the image with a leopard imprint on the top of your human’s face silhouette. As a result, applying this feature will give you a “human’s face on a leopard imprint silhouette”.

In conclusion, Cricut Intersect will allow you to put the design of another image layer inside your main image layer. Meaning to say, instead, your shape or image is to be filled with a single solid color; you may have a single cutting image layer with different “skin” filled inside of it.

How to intersect image layers:

Select both of your canvas image layers, proceed to Combine, and then select Intersect.

4. The Cricut Subtract

Cricut Subtract is a feature in Cricut’s Combine Tools that doesn’t leave you with any excess. For example, you want to combine the word “Y.O.L.O.” with a circle coming from the Basic Shapes Tool. Once you apply “subtract” on both image layers, the word Y.O.LO as your top image layer will be placed or combined inside the circle. With that, you don’t need to cut some excess areas of the image layer because once the top layer is placed inside of the bottom image layer, it will follow along and adjust the bottom layer’s shape. Comparing Subtract to Slice Tool, this feature helps you cut the top layer of your design from the bottom layer without giving us lots of pieces.

Again, in summary, Cricut Subtract “slices your image layers without giving you excess pieces of your design. Whatever is sliced on the top of the image layer will be sliced out of the bottom.

How to subtract image layers:

On your canvas, select both of your image layers. Go to Combine tools and then select Subtract.

5. The Cricut Exclude

Cricut Exclude is another brand-new feature now available in Cricut’s Combine Tools. This feature is the opposite of the Cricut Intersect, and here it is how.

When you apply the Exclude feature, some parts of the text design layer must be overlapped above some parts of the image layer of a Christmas tree. For example, you may want an image layer of a Christmas tree that coincides with the text design layer Happy Holidays. Now you will notice that the parts that are only overlapping will be sliced out and left out as those that are remaining.

Overall, comparing Cricut Exclude to Cricut Intersect, Cricut Intersect will overlap all the parts of the top image layer inside the bottom image layer and then slice it. Still, with Cricut Exclude, only some parts of the top layer will be overlapped above the bottom layer. Those parts that only overlap shall be sliced.

How to exclude image layers:

Select both of your canvas image layers, proceed to Combine, and then select Exclude.

Are there still things left in your crafting life that, up to now, you think you haven’t tried? Is some fear still hiding within you after this tour in the tunnel of Cricut’s Layers Panel? I am 100% confident that you’re now free from any hesitation! With everything you discovered about this tool, you can now step out of your box and start to live your crafting life too!

Other Vinyl Crafting Articles

Please click the links below for more blogs that you may find helpful in your crafting adventures:

CRICUT DESIGN SPACE: THE ULTIMATE SPACE FOR DIY-ERS

SVG AND CRICUT: PERFECT MATCH FOR PERFECT RESULTS

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