Sometimes when you download an SVG from a site like Etsy, you may want to make some changes to the layers so you can cut it out in different materials and or different colors.

In this video below, I show you how I made a one layer SVG file into a two layer file using the Cricut contour tool so I could cut it out in gold liquid metallic & brown matte HTV, instead of just one color, which would have been my only option originally. 

You can watch the video below to see how I did it in Cricut Design Space (turn your sound on) or follow these instructions.  

First things first, let's talk a little more about the contour tool and what it is used for. 

What is Cricut Contour Tool?

Once you get used to the contour tool, you will quickly grow to love it. This feature allows you to hide an element of your design so it will not be cut out when you go to make your project. The contour tool will separate all of the pieces (cut lines) of your design so they can be individually selected and removed. You can hide these pieces by selecting the element you no longer want on the image itself in the contour panel, or you can use the scroll bar to find and select which you would like to no longer be visible.

The dark gray elements are cut lines that will appear on your project when you cut it out. When selected to be hidden, the cut lines will be light gray and it will no longer be apart of the image. 

After you open your SVG in your workspace, you first going to want to duplicate it and change the color of one of the designs so you can differentiate between the designs easier. For the project in the video, I made one butterfly black and one purple. 

Then click on the one of the designs (I selected the black butterfly) and click "contour." From there, your contour panel will pop up with all of the pieces of your design separated.  Then select all of the pieces that you want to remove - I am choosing all the letters. You can do this by either using the scroll bar to find and select the pieces, or you can click the pieces themselves on the design. The pieces you remove will be light gray.

After making your selections, close the contour panel and you will see all of the letters your design.

Then repeat the process on the duplicated design. But this time I selected "hide all contours" to save time since there would be so many different pieces to select one by one. I then selected all the letters that I previously removed from the first design so they would remain in my workspace without all the other elements of the design.

After your selections are made, close the panel and you will be left with just the letters. 

Now you can combine the two separate pieces to make one design. Then you can cut each piece out in a different vinyl color or material.

For this design, I cut out the outline and butterfly wing pieces in our gold liquid metallic and used brown matte HTV for the letters inside the other wing. You can watch it come to life in the video below!