Ever wanted to make something larger than your mat? Cordelia wanted a huge Harry Potter to hang on her wall. Once I figured it out it was rather simple. And now I can teach you how to make things larger than your mat. I also have a pair of larger than mat sloths here.
It is easy to make things larger than your mat. You just need to cut them down and piece them together. I took the Harry Potter cake topper I made for Cordelia’s Birthday (See them here) and made it 28 inches tall. But your thinking “My mat isn’t that big.” Well I will show you how to handle that. You can just download and use my files or I will walk you through making your own with this project as an example.
What you will need
- Cardstock
- various scraps of cardstock
- Pen
- glue
- Tape
- Download File
Paper Selection
The base needs to be fairly stiff so that it won’t flop around. Patterns really don’t work on big projects, believe me I tried. Fitting the patterns so that they match up will make you pull your hair out. It is easier to decorate them later.
Cutting
The trick is in how you cut the pieces. First I resized my project to 28 inches. Then I shrunk my viewing area to allow me to see the whole project. You do this with the grayed out + and – in the bottom left corner of the mat in Design Space. If you shrink it to 25% that should allow you to see the whole project.
Then separate all the layers. Anything that is smaller than 11.5 X 11.5 can be cut on your mat. For organizational sake hide those parts for now by clicking the eyeball in the layers list, next to the piece you want to hide. They aren’t deleted, just hidden and we can bring them back. The other parts will have a yellow triangle next to them in the layers list. That means, in this case, that they are too big for your mat but we are going to fix that.
Preparing to Slice
First make a square and make the size 11.5 X 11.5. Then make 6 or 7 copies of it. Arrange 3 of them over the first piece you want to separate. Make sure the edges just touch each other. The easiest way to do this is with the X and Y position in the upper right corner of the top menu. Put the first piece at a whole number position (7X and 5Y in the example below) then add 11.5 to the X number and place the second piece at the 18.5 X and 5Y position and the thrid piece at the 7X and 16.5Y position.
Select a grey section and the robe in this case and slice. The do the same for the other grey sections. Finally delete the grey sections which you don’t want and you are left with 4 red robe sections, all of which will fit on a mat and cut properly.
Repeat this for all the parts you need to cut apart.
On the face, the mouth stretches across two haves. Make sure you attach each half to the appropriate piece with the edge line hanging over so the mouth doesn’t end up with a line through it. Or if possible move the mouth over.
Use as many 11.5 X 11.5 squares as you need. The body requires 5 of them because it is bigger.
This makes quite a few mats but they cut quickly because they are simple. Be sure to bring back anything that was hidden earlier.
Assembly
First sort the pieces so that each large object is together. Then on the back tape them together. Assemble the project as you would any regular size object but make sure the tape is in the back. You may need to tape the different big pieces together but again be sure the tape is on the back.
Decorate the assembled project as you want. I thought the robe needed something so I made some gold snowflakes and attached them to the front with glue, but they are not included in the Design Space File. They are in the SVG file.