Moving content between existing layers

[willip4]

Thank you both so much. Final questions.
1) When I cut it only appears to cut out a white space and not the actual image I want to move. It has destroyed my original image.
2) How do I determine the alpha channel?
3) Is there a better way to do this?

I am trying to create an image I can silk screen print and ultimately just need two layer that I can print out and screen print.