Category: Tutorial

A2 Snow Globe Shaker Card Tutorial with Kathy

Hi Everyone!  It’s Kathy today with a tutorial showing how to assemble the new A2 Snow Globe Shaker Cards. (in Silhouette here)  I made the adorable Snow Globe Shaker Snowman Card  take a peek…

A lot of people get nervous when they see a print and cut piece on the card, but it really is easy.  I’ll show you how I did it using my Silhouette, but you can also see a print and cut tutorial for Cricut here.

First you want to go into Design Page Settings and set your paper size to 8.5″x 11″.  This tells Silhouette you’ll be printing and cutting a regular letter sized paper.  Add the Snow Globe Base piece with the sentiment to your mat.

Next, click on the Registration Marks button and select type 1 registration marks for Cameo or Portrait.  You’ll see the black lines and grids show up on your mat.  Make sure your design is inside the darker marks on your mat.

Once things are set up, click on the printer icon and send the design to your printer.

This is what the page will look like with the registration marks.  Place the paper on your cutting mat.

Once the design is on your cutting mat, load it into your Silhouette, and go back to the software and select send to Silhouette.  Make sure the cut settings are set for the type of paper you are cutting.

Your Silhouette will read the registration marks then cut the design around your printed sentiment.

Now to assemble your card!  Start by cutting all of your pieces.  The design calls for cutting 3 of the snow globe outlines from chipboard.  I used Silhouette Chipboard for this, but if you did not have chipboard, you could cut six pieces from a thicker cardstock.

You want to start by assembling your snow globe.

First glue the layers of chipboard together.  Set those aside to dry.  Next, add the blue background piece (with the holes) to the Snow Globe Base.  Add the Snow “mound” piece, making sure the bottom is aligned with the bottom of the blue background.

Add the chipboard layers over the whole base.  Next, add the print and cut Snow globe base piece.  While this is drying, assemble your snowman.  Just a hint, the black piece of the snowman is sandwiched between the white body and the brown arms piece.  Add your snowman to your shaker card as shown.  Let the pieces dry completely.  You don’t want your confetti pieces sticking to any leftover wet glue.

Once your base is dry, add in the confetti snowflakes.  I also added in a few white and silver sequins, but be careful not to add too much, you want things to be able to “shake!”  Once your confetti is added, glue the piece of acetate over the globe. ( I used overhead transparencies purchased at my local office supply store)  Don’t overdo with the glue, it will squeeze out and stick to your confetti pieces.  Add the red ring over the transparency piece and your globe is done!  Add the background piece to your card, and then add the snow globe to the background.

It really is pretty easy to put together,  and the results are so cute!  That’s it for me today, thanks for stopping by to peek!

 

 

 

 

 

Car Monogram Tutorial with Anita

Hi!  Anita here with a tutorial to make your own car window monogram. This is for my daughter’s car and she loves anything that is monogrammed.  I previously purchased one and it came off in the car wash.    I used Lori’s Monogram Set A-Z which is a lovely file set with so many different options for your personalization needs.  You can find this file here in Lori’s store and they are sold as individual letters in the Silhouette store.  Here is the M, here is the C and the L.

There are a few supplies that you will need for your project.  You will need some kind of vinyl and transfer tape.   I chose some glitter vinyl from Cricut.  You will also need a brayer, a craft stick or scraper and a weeding tool, or pick.

Open all three files on your mat, they will likely overlap but you can move them around.

Ungroup your monogram files one set at a time.  Move the three initial groups that you want to use onto your mat.

Ungroup the desired monogram files from the remaining files and leave them on your mat.  I am using  CLM.

I  decided that I wanted to use a round monogram so I kept that file on my mat.  The other files were off to the left and messy so you can highlight them all and delete them.

I made the circle and monogram large so that I could get the placement that I wanted within the circle.  I  measured the space on her rear window which would allow for the monogram to be positioned so that the rear wiper would not touch it when in use.

I resized it to fit her window.

When you put the vinyl on your mat,  you want to use a brayer or a pizza roller to make sure that the vinyl is stuck to the mat well and will not move.

Next, select the vinyl setting for cutting on your machine and adjust your blade.  This is very important because you want it to make what is called a kiss cut which is essentially to cut through the vinyl but not the backing.  This will make more sense as we move forward.

Once your design is cut, you need to weed out the pieces of vinyl that you do not want to have in your final design.

After weeding,  cut the backing with your design on it so that you have at least 1/2″ clearance on all sides.  Cut a piece of the transfer tape to the same size or slightly bigger dimension than your design piece.  Remove the liner from the transfer tape piece and gently place it over your cut image.   Use a scraper to burnish the transfer tape onto the vinyl.

Now you might be wondering why my sample above is pink and my actual monogram that I put on the window is silver. Well, things don’t always work out and you might have to start again.  I worked hard at trying to burnish the pink monogram and just believe that the vinyl was old and the design was a bit intricate so it just did not work.  I moved on to plan B and it worked like a charm.

Peel the backing paper from the design,  leaving the transfer tape, with your design, sticky and exposed.  Be sure to clean the window first and then put the transfer tape with the vinyl images onto the window.  Use your scraper to make sure that it is burnished to the window.

Pull back a tiny piece of the transfer tape to make sure that the letters are sticking.  When you know they set, pull the whole piece of tape off at a 45 degree angle, slowly and carefully.  I’m so happy with this design!  I’m sure my daughter will love it!

Happy monograming.  You can monogram so many things, from clothing, to home goods, to a car window.  Lori has so many adorable files that would look so awesome in vinyl on a surface of your choice.

Hugs,

Anita

 


I Love Warm Hugs with Lezlye

Welcome Lori Whitlock Fans! Lezlye, here today with and adorable snowman card and a quick tutorial for you newbies to Lori’s files.

When you first import the file it is all together and black, if you were to size it all together and click cut using the cricut explore it would put all these on a black mat.

You need to click on the layers and un-group them once you have your desired size set.

Hit the layers button and each individual piece and then add the color you want to cut. Now it will cut them all individually on your desired colors.

This is just one way to do it. Now on to the card…

I used the I Love Winter 6 x 6 Pad that Lori designed for Echo Park Paper, along with the coordinating embellishments. I love to bling up my cuts with stickles and dimensional buttons or gems.

My card measures 5.5 x 5.5

Files and Products used:

Snowman

Nesting Banners

I Love Winter by Lori Whitlock for Echo Park

Have a great Day!

 

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Shadow Box Pumpkin Tutorial with Kathy

Hi Everyone!  It’s Kathy today with a fun and easy tutorial showing how to make a Shadowbox Pumpkin!

First, gather your supplies….  You will need a craft pumpkin.  I purchased one at Michaels that already had the opening carved into the front, but you could also purchase an un-carved one and cut a hole in the front using a craft knife.  You will also need some modeling clay the same color as the inside of your pumpkin, a glue gun, some wooden craft sticks, some clear thread or fishing line, a tea light, and a cut out of a haunted house from a heavier black cardstock (at least 80lb).  Lori has a few haunted houses in her SVG Shop  here,  and in the Silhouette Store here.  I used this one for my design (here in Silhouette)

Before you cut your house, make sure to measure the inside area of your pumpkin.  I resized my design to be 8″ wide to fit in my pumpkin.  Next, glue one of the craft sticks to the back of your design.  Make sure it’s towards the center, and not showing through any the windows.  You want a small portion of the craft stick to hang over the bottom of the house design.

Using the modeling clay, make a “hill” of clay in the center of your pumpkin.   I put the clay in so that it went all the way across the width of the pumpkin.  This will be the base for your house.

Put your house cut-out into the pumpkin, inserting the craft stick into the clay.  Adjust your clay as needed, you don’t want large gaps along the bottom.

Attach the bats and moon to the fishing line.  Hot glue the line to the top of the pumpkin so that they look like they are floating in the air.  Place the tea light behind the house inside the pumpkin.

That’s it!  You have a shadowbox pumpkin!

That’s it for me today, thanks for stopping by to peek!

 

 

Lip Balm Pumpkin Tutorial with Anita

Anita here with a fun tutorial to combine two cut files to make a lip balm pumpkin.  I came across this orange EOS lip balm when shopping recently and wanted to make a fall holder for it.  I used Lori Whitlock’s Flourish Pumpkin cut file which you can find here in the Silhouette Store and here in the Lori Whitlock store.  I also used the Lip Balm Monsters Cut file which you can buy in the Silhouette Store  and in Lori’s store and adapted it to make it work with my orange EOS.  How did I do this?  Well let me tell you just how easy it is.  I also used one of Lori’s new Echo Park collections called I Love Family.

You are going to want to open the Flourish Pumpkin cut file and put it on your mat.

You then want to ungroup the pumpkin so that you can move the parts around.  Move the stem off your mat for now.

Add the monster cut file to the same mat.

Now you are going to want to make sure the monster cut files are selected and then you want to ungroup them.

Once you have ungrouped the files you should move all but the orange or green body piece off of the mat.  I chose to use the orange, but you can use either for our purposes.  Next you will select the body from the monster and release compound path.  This will allow you to have the center circle be a separate piece from the body of the monster so that you can move it over onto the pumpkin.

Before you move the circle you want to remove color from the circle.  Click on fill color and select the cross hatch design I have highlighted as that will remove the color.  Move the circle from the center of the monster body to the center of the pumpkin.  Cut your file and you will have a beautifully sized circle ready for any EOS lip balm.

I took some twine and curled it around a round tool after wetting it with some Stiffy, fabric stiffener and added that as an accent.

Lastly, open your EOS lip balm and carefully place the pumpkin center over the lip balm.  I find that if you line up the indentation on the lip balm in the front of your design and hold it in place then it will come out perfectly lined up when you screw the cap on.  This is a great little gift and you can make these out of any of your favorite cut files following these simple instructions.

Hugs, Anita