Larger than Mat Cardstock Pluto

Learn how to make a cardstock character that is larger than your machine’s cutting mat!

Every year around summer, my daughter and I get really excited that Christmas is around the corner. We start to gather our ideas for how we are going to decorate and what we will need to achieve the look we want. This year we decided we are going to do a Mickey Mouse and friends theme. One of the things that we want are characters around the tree- BIG CHARACTERS. If we were to cut out our characters to fit within the size of our mat, those would be pretty small cut outs and surely not as big as we want them to be. We decided we are going to make larger than mat characters and really make our Christmas display stand out!

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to prepare your file in Cricut Design Space so each cut can fit onto a 12″ x 12″ mat. Then I will show you how to assemble these pieces and adhere them to make an image that is larger than your mat- 24″ tall to be precise! Once you know how to break up your images to be mat sized, there is no size limit to what you can make!

Here is the video tutorial, but you can also keep scrolling for a written tutorial with pictures.

Add Image to canvas

For a good cardstock, larger than mat project, I like to choose an image with lots of color layers. You can, of course, use a single-layer, one-color image for your Larger Than Mat project, but for this Christmas display, I rather enjoy a full color image. To view the available images, I selected the “image” tab on the left of the canvas. I searched “Pluto” and selected the one that I wanted (#M3E932C7). Since the image is licensed, I do need to pay the $1.99 to use it. After selecting the image, insert it to canvas by clicking the green “Insert Image” button.

Resize image and prepare canvas

I then selected my image and resized it using the size commands at the top of the canvas. I made sure to keep my proportion locked and changed the height to 24″.

To help see this now HUGE image on my canvas, I changed the zoom (located in the bottom left of the canvas) until my image was fully in the picture of the canvas with lots of room to work.

I also make a duplicate copy of the grouped image by clicking on duplicate in the layers panel on the right of the canvas. This way I have a reference to look at as I’m deconstructing the image I’m working on.

Ungroup and separate pieces

After selecting the Pluto that we are working on, select ungroup at the top of the layers panel. I like to separate all of the pieces so I can see all of them.

Next, put aside all of the pieces that are smaller than 11.5″x11.5″ since those will already fit the mat and therefore do not need to be cut down.

For the pieces that are larger than 11.5″ on either the horizontal or vertical axis, we are going to break those apart using two different methods.

Slice the larger pieces (method 1)

We will start with the largest piece, which happens to be our base layer. We need to take that large piece and cut it into smaller, mat sized pieces. To do this, we are going to use shapes. Select shapes tab and choose a square.

With the square selected, we want to resize to 11.5″. We selected this size because we know that 11.5″ is the largest that the machine can cut on a 12″x12″ mat. After resizing your square, I recommend duplicating it many times for quicker work time as we move through this step. If you have too many made, you can alway delete them when you are finished.

From there, we are going to place the square over the large base piece. You will need to select the square and the base layer at the same time. You can do this by selecting the square and then holding down the [command] on an apple or [control] on a PC and selecting the base layer. Now, you should have both pieces selected. Once the two are selected, choose slice from the bottom left of the layers panel.

Once you hit slice, Design Space will take the areas that the two layers overlapped and it will slice them apart. You will now see three layers instead of just the Pluto layer and square layer. By doing this, you sliced a chunk of the Pluto base layer that will now cut on your 12″x12″ mat!

You are just going to repeat that step over and over until all of the pieces of your base layer are small enough to fit on your mat. As you go along, you can delete the extra pieces that you will not be keeping for your new pieced-together base layer.

I like to piece my project back together as I am separating it just to make sure I have all of the pieces.

Continue working on the other layers that need to be sliced, but next, we will also learn another method for separating layers.

Use contour to separate hard-to-slice pieces (method 2)

Sometimes slicing is not the best option for breaking up your layer. Sometimes you do not need to slice through the image, but you rather just separate pieces of the layer to put them on their own layer. When separating will work better than slicing, you will need to contour.

To do this process, first I duplicated my layer- the Pluto body layer.

Next, I clicked on contour in the bottom right of the layers panel.

After choosing contour, a box comes up. In this box, you will see all of the pieces that make up the layer that you have selected. If you click on a piece, you are telling Design Space that you want to delete that piece of that layer. If the box on the right side is in a darker grey, you have selected the piece to be removed. For the first layer we have selected, I am going to remove Pluto’s face.

When you X out of the contour box, you will see what you are left with on your canvas.

We are going to do the same thing for the other Pluto body layer.

For the last layer that needs to separated, we are going to use both the slice method and the contour method. First, I am going to slice out the big, easy pieces. (**note, this entire layer can be done using the contour method, but I prefer to slice out what I can first since it is sometimes easier to slice than to contour. You can decide what works best for you)

Slice the right pieces of the green gift layer.

Slice the middle of the green gift layer.

Contour the remaining pieces in the green gift layer.

To make sure all of your pieces are there, put your mat-ready pieces back together to look like the image that you kept for reference.

Now that you have created your file to cut, you can delete your reference file (or just hide it by clicking on the eyeball in the layers panel). It is time to cut!

Cut your cardstock on your mat

For this project, I am using AC Cardstock that I purchased at 12x12cardstockshop.com . It is an 80 pound weight. I used the Blue, light grip mat, but the Green, standard will also work. I cut it using the “Medium Cardstock” setting on my Cricut Maker.

Assemble your Larger-Than-Mat Project!

Once you have all of your pieces cut out, you can start piecing them together to get them lined up before adhering them. Start on the base layer. Once you know where all of your pieces go, you can turn your base layer over to the back and use regular Scotch tape on the back to adhere the layer.

After you have your base layer taped together, turn it right side up and start lining up your sliced layer pieces.

Once you have your pieces arranged, it is time to glue! I like to use Scotch Tacky Glue.

Take your time gluing the pieces down. You don’t want to rush it and make a mistake. It is difficult to fix if the glue has already set.

There you have it- your larger than mat cardstock cut out!

I hope that you have had fun watching how to make a Larger-than-Mat cardstock cut out. Imagine how many different ways you can use this new skill! Now that you know how to make larger than mat cut outs, there is no size limit to what you can make!!