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• Sometimes picture framers work too hard at things - mat decoration cut with the Wizard, for example. What attributes of cut decoration do we regard as important? Intricacy, accents of color, the look of complexity, the illusion of depth… to name a handful. Often, framers turn to Trace to invent unique shapes with these attributes for their designs.

• However, we should not overlook a less complicated way to include decoration. The Template Library is full of shapes. Their size, placement, rotation, and number of layers can all be easily manipulated in the design screen without resorting to Trace.

• One traditional idea for arranging decorative elements is to place them symmetrically at the sides of an opening. The spacing with the opening will be the same, but the vertical position of the elements allows more placement choices. Tradition suggests that the elements could be positioned somewhere between the bottom corners and the middle of the opening. Placing a Jewel along the bottom is also a subtle way to include a spot of color and interest when cut with an opening.

Jewels are a two-layer application of shapes that when merged with an opening, generates even more cutting intricacy, adding a thin sliver of an elongated shape as part of the second layer.

One traditional idea for arranging decorative elements is to place them symmetrically at the sides of an opening. The spacing with the opening will be the same, but the vertical position of the elements allows more placement choices.

Tradition suggests that the elements could be positioned somewhere between the bottom corners and the middle of the opening. Placing a Jewel along the bottom is also a subtle way to include a spot of color and interest when cut with an opening.

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Templatesare specialized parametric shape generators created by Wizard.

Many of the templates have additional Properties that can be edited which can change the shape, curves and corners of the design as well as a wide assortment of Parameters.

The Template Library displays the different templates that are available for use.

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See: Template Properties

See: Template Library

Mat Designs are complete mat designs containing openings and can contain decorative or thematic elements to be cut/applied on the CMC created in

• These designs are meant to be used as the beginnings for projects.

• The Jewels contain two layers. When they are merged with the opening, this generates even more cutting intricacy, adding a thin sliver of an elongated shape as part of the second layer.

• All the example illustrations of the finished mats show a different accent color under the Jewel shape.

• Tape a piece of colored paper – matboard surface paper, for example – under the Jewel opening before assembling the layers of the finished mat.

• Notice in the step-by-step illustrations, there is a Rotation field in the Properties of the Jewel.

• For many of the Jewels to be correctly oriented, they must be rotated. When a design has Jewels on the sides, the left and right Jewels are usually rotated differently. The rotation values will be listed for each design.

• As you experiment with different sizes of rotated Jewels, you will need to adjust its rotation. Zoom in and change the rotation more precisely under the Advanced Tab.

• For instance, you can rotation a Jewel just enough to make one it its straight sides parallel to the opening.

• For any decorative elements at the sides of a mat design, the vertical placement is the most useful variation. The character of each of these two part Jewels can be further varied by experimenting with the registration of the Jewel and the elongated shape. The parts can be symmetrical and balanced, or dramatically offset.

Most of the sizes for Jewels and for spacing in these designs are not the typical decimal equivalents of fractions. The sizes for things in this collection are 0.45 inch, 0.55 inch, 0.7 inch, for example.

Refining the sizes and positions of small shapes like these requires more precision than the usual sixteenth inch per click of the plus and minus buttons. Hold the Alt key on the keyboard while clicking the plus and minus buttons on any field in the program and the value changes by 0.01 inch (0.2mm in metric).

Note also that the narrow Reveal of the openings in all these designs is 0.14 inch. This is perceptibly more than the usual eighth inch (0.125 inch). Slightly more color is exposed. This is proportionately better for larger pictures. Change it to 0.125 inch, though, if that is your preference.

It is important to make this test and refine the spacing for your machine. Otherwise, your results may be less than pleasing – both from a visual and a cutting perspective.

• For the Jewels to appear integrated with the opening, it is important that they be as closely spaced as practical. Throughout the information written in the Jewels collections - and in the designs themselves - the suggested spacing between Jewels and openings is 0.2 inch. But machines are slightly different, and this distance will vary.

• The Jewels are intended to be small accents in the presentation. Their sizes in these designs are most often around half an inch. But it is important that their shapes and construction be apparent in the example illustrations. To show the details of the Jewels better, the openings in the illustrations here are small. One confusing result is that the Jewels appear more dominant than they should be.

• In your projects, the openings will be larger. The Jewels will then return to their intended proportions and play their role as small accents of color.