MTC Blog Hop - Day 3!!!!!

Welcome, welcome, welcome to my little corner of the web and the 3rd day of the MTC Blog Hop! I am super excited about this hop as it is the first one I have ever been a participant in AND it is for my favorite software....Make-the-Cut!!!!!!  I hope you are having a great time seeing the projects being displayed each day. If you have not seen the first two days please click on the link below to see who has already showcased their work using the INCREDIBLE software - Make-the-Cut!!!!

MTC Blog Hop - Home Page

The purpose of this month long blog hop is to bring attention to the AMAZING program that can be used with a wide variety of cutting machines! The program is MAKE-THE-CUT  (more lovingly referred to as MTC). If you haven't checked out this software yet...what are you waiting for??? :) Click on the link below to go the Make-the-Cut website.

Make-the-Cut Official Website

MTC works with so many cutting machines and Andy (the creator of MTC) has made it so user friendly it is simply amazing!! To see some of the machines this software works with click on the link for the MTC Blog Hop above.

I wanted to focus for a moment on some of the incredible things you can do with MTC and a compatible cutting machine. So here we go.............

• Full WYSIWYG Printer Support for Print-and-Cut! (WYSIWYG =What You See Is What You Get)
• Check out the first Print-and-Cut I did with my Black Cat Cougar "Clawdine"  a few posts down from this one :)
• WYSIWYG Interface
• Preview/Import Any SVG, TTF, OTF, PDF or SCUT File
• Export shapes in PDF, SVG, EPS, AI and PNG formats
• Integrated SVG Gallery with over 2000 files and growing!
• Work on Multiple Projects at a Time
• Choose From 3 Standard Mat Size
• Use Any Installed Font or Import TTF/OTF Files
• Convert Raster (PNG, GIF, JPG, etc.) Images to Cuttable
• Easily Create Lattices
• Break/Split/Layer Shapes and Edit Them (my favorite at this point - so easy to take coloring pages and turn them into cutting files!)
• Weld/Join Shapes Together
• Place text and/or objects on Bezier paths (I think of this as "warping")
• Create custom background shadows from any shape
• Cut, Copy and Paste Shapes with Inkscape and Illustrator!
• And  SO MUCH MORE!!!!!!

OK so before we get to my project a little bit about my life with MTC and my cutter...........I purchased Make-the-Cut to enhance my cutting abilities and to maybe learn a little on designing my own files. I fell in love with the software but my two cutting machines did not like the detailed cuts I was trying to do and couldn't cut a circle to save my life!!! So in March of this year I purchased an 18" Black Cat Cougar (Clawdine is her name) and I LOVE IT! I can use the Make-the-Cut software with Clawdine with no worries and oh my goodness the things it does!! From simple things -- like cutting true circles -- all the way up to engraving metal, embossing, drawing with a variety of pens and oh yeah...fabulous Print and Cuts. Clawdine and MTC are like a pair made in heaven!

I am not much of a creative genius when it comes to creating from scratch my own files, so I shop a little (OK more than a little) for great SVG and MTC files. Many I find for free but I also purchase files as well. One of  my favorite places to purchase files is at SVG Cuts . They have FABULOUS files at fantastic prices.


OK on to my projects.................

Mother's Day is fast approaching and when I saw these great files in the Lunch with Mom file set at SVG Cuts I fell in love with them (as I do so many of their files!). My mother passed away three years ago and a few years prior to that my father passed away. So Mother's Day and Father's Day have not been a real big item on my calendar for a while now. For Mother's Day this year I created this memorial to my mother............. Barbara J. Stinnett

This now proudly hangs in my living room. Next will be to create a tribute to my father.

Here you can see the swirls a bit better. They cut so beautifully on Clawdine!

These 3D flowers are cut small enough that they are 3D but still fit fine inside the glass of the picture frame

The other 3D flower.

I used the 3D flowers and the swirls found in the Lunch with Mom file set, painted the frame pink and used a font from my computer to do the text. Another great feature in MTC is the ability to use any font on your computer (already installed) or other fonts you have stored on your computer. MTC allows you to shadow the lettering to create a two dimensional affect and also allows you to weld the letters together if you like. What an AMAZING program!! I LOVE my MTC!!!

I also created this ever so cute strawberry teapot bag that Mary at SVG Cuts designed. It can be found in the Lunch with Mom set as well!

This is so cute! It is all ready to put a gift inside it and give to someone.............
or keep for myself as it looks so darn cute sitting on top of my computer desk!

Instead of making a different colored handle for the teapot I put glossy accents on the handle portion. 

Leo and Mary at SVG Cuts have generously donated a $10 gift card to their site for me to give away on this Blog Hop. To enter for a chance to win there is just one requirement ......................................leave me a comment on this post telling me what you L O V E about Make-the-Cut and a way to contact you.  I will pick one winner on Saturday, May 7th!

Now don't forget to click the link under the MTC Blog Hop icon at the top of this post to check back tomorrow to see the next great project by another proud MTC user!


Have a great time hopping through the other blogs on this fantastic MTC Blog Hop for the Month of May and if you haven't been to my site before please feel free to look around and grab some free MTC or SVG files I have on here.  HAPPY CRAFTING!!

God Bless,
KathyB