This is another project in my unplugged summer fun series, a photo puzzle to fill those long summer days. When using the knife blade with images at times it can be difficult to line up your image to the proper place, by creating a drawn outline it insures proper placement of the image.
Items needed: a favorite photo, photo paper, cricut pen in black, cricut heavy 2mm chipboard, xyron 9 inch creative station, purple strong grip mat, green regular grip mat, cricut maker, knife blade and light grip tape ( painters tape, or masking tape)
Link to project in Design Space:
Open project in design space, click the upload button and select your favorite photo. Upload using complex and name it and add it to the canvas in design space. Size your picture to the same size as the puzzle, and save your project. Click the green make it button to send the project to the mat. Print your photo on the photo paper, place it on the green mat, insert into the machine and click the Cricut symbol to cut. While this is cutting, place the chipboard on the purple mat and secure with tape on all four sides (be sure to only overlap the tape 1/4 of an inch onto the chipboard). Unload picture and remove from mat by flipping mat upside down, curling the mat back towards you to insure no curling of the picture will occur. Using Xyron creative station add adhesive to the back of the photo, use trimmer to remove it from the Xyron and rub over the top to insure adhesive is edge to edge creating a sticker. Place prepared chipboard into machine, insert black pen into left holder and knife blade into the right, and click the Cricut symbol to draw the outline of the puzzle, when drawn image is complete, unload and place picture into the the drawn outline. Reload mat with chipboard and picture to cut out the puzzle pieces. This process will take a while (roughly a little over an hour) be sure to check computer settings that energy saver and screen saver settings are turned off during the duration of the cut, to ensure cut is not interrupted. When cut is complete, carefully remove pieces of the puzzle by flipping mat upside down and curl it towards you to release the puzzle pieces, the puzzle is ready to enjoy.