Category: Tutorial

Silhouette Tutorial Welding Shapes by Christine

If there is one thing that I love about digital die cuts, it’s that you can have fun manipulating them to make something very different than they might have been intended for.  I took one of Lori’s 4×6 Life Card files and made a mini album from it.  I only used one of the shapes but using the directions that I am going to give you, it will be very possible to make a mini book with different shaped pages.
Here is the file that I used.  Once I had my shape on my mat, I actually resized it to a 3×4 size for a mini, mini album, but you can create it in any size that you would like.
Here are some pictures of my finished mini book.  I used Lori Whitlock’s Here & Now for Echo Park paper and embellishment collection to create my mini book.  I’ll have more up close pictures of my mini on my blog if you want to pop on over there.
So now for the tutorial.  How do you take a 4×6 Life card and make it into this ticket shaped accordion mini album?  Let me show you!
Pick the shape that you want to use.  I picked the ticket stye.  Ungroup the file and delete the shapes that you don’t want to use for this project.  Replicate your shape so that you have a row of three.
Move each shape to the left so that they are just barely overlapping.  You don’t want to go too far because it will distort the shape.  You will know when you weld the shapes together you will know if you put them close enough because the middle lines will disappear.
If you move over too much or not enough, just click the undo button and try again.
Tip:  Hold down the shift key while you are drawing your line, to get a perfect straight line.
This step can be done whether you have the basic or Designer Edition of the Silhouette Software.
Sorry, the above direction should say, Copy one of the perforated lines and paste it on the end of the welded shape where you just erased the line.  Draw a short angled line, select it and mirror left under the replicate feature.
Cut out as many of these groupings to make your mini book long or short.
Try this technique with basic shapes or more complicated shapes.  You never know what you can make until you try.
To create the mats for the individual pages of my mini book, I took one of the original shapes and used the inside offset feature.  Those I cut out separately from matching paper.
I hope you enjoyed the tutorial today.  If you have any questions please feel free to visit my blog and leave your question in the comment section.  Thanks!!
Supplies used:
Here & Now paper and embellishment collection by Lori Whitlock for Echo Park

Silhouette Tutorial by Mendi Creating Decorative Photo Mats + SALE

I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful 4th of July! It’s always been one of my favorite holidays! First off, let’s start this holiday right by having a 30% OFF SALE in the SVG shop. Now through July 7, you can take 30% OFF your entire order!! So, it’s time to stock up on all those cutting files you’ve been wanting to get! Simply use coupon code: JULY at checkout. SHOP HERE

I feel privileged to be able to share a festive layout and video tutorial today using fun papers from Pebbles Let Freedom Ring collection and a number of cutting files designed by Lori.
As I state below in my video, I have a bit of a confession… I created this 8×8 layout for my Mother-in-law as part of her Christmas gift last year and saved it until now to share. The only trouble is I didn’t know then that it would be my turn to create a tutorial so I’ve tried my best to pull from my project a few of my favorite tips and tricks that I’m hoping will still manage to teach a few of you something new. 😉
To create my layout I used the following cutting files designed by Lori Whitlock:
2 Borders (Silhouette Store only)
Dot Star (Silhouette Store only)

Also, remember the Silhouette Promotion this week:

If you do upgrade your software (or buy a machine+software) using code: LORI you can earn this free SVG file. Just send me a your order number to info@loriwhitlock.com.
And, we’re still taking entries for this fantastic GIVEAWAY!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Working With Silhouette Files Tutorial by Brigit

Hi Everyone, I have a couple of helpful hints today, things I do in Silhouette Studio Desiger Edition to help me prepare my files before I cut them out.  I’ll be using Lori’s 2 boxes on a 12 x 12 file and one of the cards from the belly band set.

The flag on the box is from the patriotic icon set, I resized both of these to make a smaller treat box.  The ungrouped box measures 10.170w x 5.840h and the flag pieces ungrouped measures, stars – 1.580w x 1.060, stripes – 3.015w x 1.905h and the flag box – 3.015w x 1.905h.

When I added the card the pieces are bigger than the mat, so I select all and ungroup.  Notice the score lines, they are ungrouped also, so I click and drag around the card and score lines to select, go to the modify window and select make compound path (or group), you can also right click and select make compound path. You are going to do the same thing to the belly band so it’s easier to have the modify window open so you can select make compound path or group again.

I like to fill with the color or pattern paper I’m going to use and arrange my project to see how it will look.

Here is a picture of the flag, I ungrouped but it also ungrouped the stars. If you go to move it and this happens just go to edit and undo move, then click and drag and select over the stars and box and make a compound path.

Here’s a picture of the make compound path and group, they both will cut the stars out, but I like to see exactly how it will look with the make compound path.

There are two boxes with this file, so I ungrouped and deleted the other box then resized, (I also did another ungroup and make compound path on this box so I would see the lines when resized and fit the flag.)

I group my pieces together by color or pattern paper.  Keeping your groups to the left side, moving to the mat to cut, then to the right side helps you keep track of what’s been cut.

For this project though I did a print-n- cut on two 12 x 12 pieces of white textured cardstock, (American Crafts 80lb), I arranged and grouped the pieces together.  I then selected my group and go to the line color window and select none.  Now print-n- cut. Next, move those shapes to the right and place the next group on your mat and finish cutting those out.

I used Echo Park’s 4th of July Mini Theme digital paper, Stars & Stripes Trendy Twine and Jaded Blossom’s Celebrate America stamp set.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope these tips help, I have a couple more project photos on my blog.

Hopefully this is a helpful tutorial. Thank you for dropping by!

Silhouette Tutorial Bending Text by Traci

Hi everyone!  I’m excited to share a fun and easy tutorial with you today!  These steps will show you how to bend lines of text, either to create a phrase that wraps around an object, or to fit inside a curved shape as I have done on Lori’s adorable hot air balloon.
Here is the card I created with a curved “Thank You” cut out of the band.
First, pull up the shape you want to place your text in and resize it if necessary.
If there are multiple pieces to your shape, ungroup them and move everything to the side except the piece you want the word in.  Zoom in on your shape a bit, and chose the text option on the left tool bar.  As you type your word or phrase, a green box will appear.  Note that there will also be a little circle, with a cross in it, along the green line.
If you place your curser over this circle and click, you are able to drag your word into your shape.  When you hover the word over a line, the letters snap to the shape of the line.  To move your word up into the center of your shape, you will use the grey sliding bar that appears through your letters.  If you place your curser along that bar and slide upwards, your letters will move up.  However, in some cases, the spacing on your letters will also move in and start overlapping.
To prevent this, move your word over to the left so that you can see how much room you will have to increase your character spacing.
Play with the character spacing (found toward the bottom of your text style window) until you like the way the word looks.


Now you should be able to go back to the sliding grey line and move your word up into the center of your shape without the letters bunching up together.  You will notice once you’ve done this however, that your original shape line is now grey (no cut line).  This would be okay if you just wanted to cut out the bent word.

But, for this tutorial, we want to cut out the banner shape for the front of my balloon, so I will need to make this a cut line (red) again.  Highlight your shape and click on the Cut Style icon at the top.  In the Cut Style window, click the button that says “Enable Cut Style”.

Now your entire image is red and will be cut.


This is also a fun technique to use for cutting a phrase to wrap around a circle.  You would just snap your phrase on the outside line of the circle, rather than inside the shape.  I will post another project showing an example of this on my blog today, so I invite you to stop by Artsy Albums to check it out!
Thanks! Traci

Silhouette Tutorial by Corri Using the Offset Feature

Hi everyone! Corri here.

I have a quick tutorial for you today using the Offset feature in Silhouette Studio software. The offset feature is great for creating a shadow layer around your image.

I used paper and a sticker from the Echo Park “Here & Now” Collection .  I love the chalkboard paper!

 

First, I typed 2013 in Lori’s Happy Font at 1.5″h.

Next, I opened this graduation cap file, ungrouped and deleted the 2012. I sized the cap file (including both layers) to 1.75″h and positioned the cap’s base layer on top of the numbers. Select the offset menu from the tool bar in the upper right of the screen and click offset.

You can adjust the slider to make the shadow smaller or larger.  I left it at .25 so that I wouldn’t get a cut out in the middle of the “O”.

 

Click apply.

 

To create a little tighter shadow, click the new offset layer that you just created and click internal offset and then apply.    Now you can drag the layers apart and cut.

 

For the base of my card, I used the Easel Bracket Card.  I used my new sketch pens to draw this pretty flower flourish in each corner.

To get your Cameo to sketch the flourish, first select the bracket shape.

Click the cut style menu at the top of your screen and select no cute.

Replace your blade with a sketch pen and select sketch pen in your cut settings.

Click cut.

 

Do not unload your mat.  Replace the pen with the blade.

Select the bracket again, go to the cut style menu and change it to cut.

Select the flourishes and change them to no cut. Adjust your cut setting back to pattern paper and then cut.