Updated on July 23, 2024
How to Contour in Cricut Design Space. Step by step tutorial on how to use the contour tool in Cricut Design Space plus a video tutorial.
Welcome to Lesson 10 on Cricut Design Space Basics. Today, we are talking about how to use the contour tool in Cricut Design Space.
The contour tool is available in the layers panel. It allows you to hide a portion of an image layer by removing unwanted cut lines. This tool is often used to select a part of an image layer to use in the design. It can also be used to separate parts of an image into separate layers.
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How to Use the Contour Tool in Cricut Design Space
Sometimes you find an image in Cricut Design Space that is almost perfect. Maybe you want to remove a small part of the image, a word, or even make a text image multiple colors. This is when you will use the contour tool.
To get started, open a new project in Cricut Design Space. Click on Images and add any multi-layer image.
Related: How to Use Images in Cricut Design Space
Start by ungrouping the layers if your image is multi-layered. You can do this by clicking on the image and then click Ungroup in the Layers panel.
Next, select the layer that you want to hide the cut lines. In this example, I am going to hide the hearts. Then, click Contour.
The Hide Contour window will pop up. You can select or deselect which part of the image you want to show in the final design on the right side of the screen.
In our example, I am going to click on the two hearts. Once you have selected the parts of the image you want to remove from the design, click on the X to close the Hide Contour screen.
You can click on the image line you want to hide or select the line from the menu on the right.
Now, you can see the hearts are no longer visible in the design. I can add a different shape where the hearts were, or leave it blank.
The beauty of the contour tool is to allow you to alter images to make them exactly the way you want.
If you want to show the hearts in the image again, simply click on the layer that had the hearts, click Contour in the layers panel, and then re-select the hearts.
Another option for using the contour tool is to create multiple layers from a single-layer design. This will allow you to cut or draw parts of a single image separately. I use this option frequently when I want to create a multi-layered phrase from a single-layer design.
Start by choosing a single layer image and add it to the canvas.
Select the image, and then select Duplicate at the top of the layers panel. If you plan on creating more than two layers, continue to duplicate until you have the number of layers you want for the design.
I chose a Happy Birthday phrase that is a single layer. Select the first image, and then click Contour. Hide all the pieces of the word Birthday and then X out of the Hide Contour box.
Note: When using the contour tool, make sure to click all the little pieces inside the letters to remove those from the design.
Next, select the second image. Click Contour and hide all the letters of the word Happy.
Now, you can line the images back up using the alignment tool. Or, before you use the contour tool create an extra duplicate of the original design and use that to align your images. Then, delete the original.
Each word of the phrase can be designed separately.
Maybe you want to draw the happy with a pen and cut out the word birthday from cardstock. This is easy to do with two separate layers.
The contour tool allows you to be even MORE creative with the images available in Cricut Design Space.
Save video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NeZYBqKb2EU
Check back and subscribe to my channel for more Cricut Design Space Basics tutorials each week.
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