Category: Tutorial

2015 Magnetic Calendar with Traci

Happy New Year Lori fans!!  Welcome to 2015!

It’s Traci here today to share an easy project tutorial for making a magnetic desktop calendar.

For this project, I used one of Lori’s adorable Chalkboard cards and Silhouette brand chipboard to create the base of the calendar.   I also used her 2015 Print & Cut Calendar file, along with Silhouette’s Adhesive Magnet material, to make the monthly calendars.  Here is how to create this desktop calendar for yourself:

1.  First, open the Chalkboard file and duplicate the large base portion as shown below.  Using the eraser tool, erase the inside window on just one of the bases.

2.  Once you have the two bases (one with a window, one without) cut them out of chipboard (I use Silhouette brand) and out of paper of your choice.  Be sure to adjust the cut settings to accommodate the thicker chipboard material, and then re-adjust the setting for the thinner paper.  The red paper that I used is from Lori’s “Yesterday” collection for Carta Bella.

3.  Cut the chipboard that has the window in half along the score line and adhere the back piece to the other chipboard as shown above.

4.  Adhere the other paper piece to the chipboard as shown.  You should have two layers of chipboard and one layer of paper on the front and back of your base once finished.

5.  Using a paper trimmer, cut a piece of magnet material (I used Silhouette brand) 3 1/8″ x 3 1/4″.  The piece of magnet will act as the “chalkboard” inside the window.  Adhere all pieces of the base together.  Tie twine or ribbon through the holes in the legs of the stand to help the calendar stand up.

6.  Create the calendars by doing a print & cut with the monthly calendars.

7. After cutting the calendars, I used the “offset” feature to create a mat for each calendar, and also for cutting the magnet material out of the same shape.  The magnet material is self adhesive so I layered the calendar and the mat, and then just adhered the magnet material to the back of each piece.

8.  To finish the project, I added the banner that comes with the chalkboard file and cut out some numbers for 2015.  I tied the banner to the top of my calendar with twine and added a cute chipboard butterfly from Lori’s “Yesterday” collection.   I also added a piece of magnet to the back of some other chipboard pieces so I could add them on my calendar some months.

As you can see below, the months can easily be added and changed on the desktop stand each month.

Thanks so much for stopping by Lori’s blog today!  I invite you to also come visit me on my blog at Artsy Albums and say hello!

 

Print and Cut New Years Eve Party Favors by Tya Smith

Hi blog friends! Thank you so much for stopping by during this crazy time of year! It’s great to have you here! My design style is based on simplicity! I adore a quick and easy, yet super creative idea especially during the busy times of year – So today, I thought I would share with you a couple of New Years Eve party favors. One of the main reasons why I love using Lori Whitlock’s files is that they are darling (of course) and they are so easy to put together. I also utilized my Print and Cut feature on my Silhouette Cameo – another time saver for me and a great way to use some of my favorite digital papers from Lori’s collection. Let me show you what I did!

 All papers are from the Birthday Fun Patterns Digital papers found on Snap Click Supply.

 

I did a french fry style box for my Midnight Kisses favor. Add a few Hershey Kisses to the bag, tie a bow and you are set!

 The label on the front highlights one of my favorite new fonts called LW Curious- isn’t it darling! I also added some enamel dots for some dimension as well.

Midnight Kisses Box Supplies:

The next favor was originally a candy holder, but what New Years Eve celebration is complete without a little confetti? I added some fun star shaped confetti to the inside of the box.

 

One little change I did to this file is that when I went to tie the tuelle, there was a big hole in the box ends that the confetti would leak out of, so I just added a 3/4 inch circle punched from cardstock to cover the ends up.

Confetti Popper Supplies

So hopefully I have inspired you to whip of some of these fun little favors for your New Years Eve festivities.

If you have kids at your party, how fun would these be for them? Thanks for stopping by, and stop by my blog http://simply-tya.blogspot.com/ and say hi! Happy Holidays!

5×7 Shadow Box Cards

I’d like to introduce you to my brand new 5×7 Shadow Box Cards. When I developed these, I was trying to figure out a cool new 3D card concept. After a few prototypes (and a couple of disasters), these charming little cards were born. I’ve created several different designs that work for Christmas and Winter. I’ve also created a video tutorial for these cards. If you’d like to watch the tutorial, be sure to scroll to the bottom of this post where I’ve embedded it, or you can click HERE.

Thank you for the overwhelming positive response to these cards! I’m so glad you’re enjoying them. Please feel free to post your creations to my Facebook Page or even enter them in the current challenge located in the right column of the blog.

You’ll find the Silhouette Cutting files HERE.

You’ll find the SVG cutting files HERE (and, YES, they are Cricut Explore friendly)

I thought it might be helpful to see all the design options in one place:

Have fun crafting and Happy Holidays!!

 

Merry and Bright Shadowbox with Cathy

Hi Lori Whitlock fans…Cathy here with you today and I have a quick last minute gift idea to share with you!  I created a shadow box with one of Lori’s Christmas Phrase Set 1!  I know that this isn’t the most original idea out there but they are really quick and easy to make.  Lori Whitlock has so many wonderful phrase sets that the possibilities are endless for creating these shadowboxes.

I started with and 8×8 white shadow box and added an 8×8 piece of black chalkboard paper from Lori’s Echo Park Christmas Cheer collection.  Just adhere this piece to the back of your frame.  Next, fill your frame with tiny ornaments or jingle bells.

I cut the Merry and Bright out of gold metallic Oracle 631 vinyl.  I scaled it down to the size you can see below.  The preset vinyl setting on the Silhouette cuts is beautifully with a nice sharp blade.  Weed your vinyl and transfer the saying onto the transfer paper.    Then just adhere it where you want it to be and just like that you are done!  Easy Peasy!

Such a super cute set!  If I need another last minute gift, I will use the Jingle all the Way and fill it full of multi colored jingle bells!

And as I mentioned earlier, that Lori has so many phrases that the possibilities are endless for these shadowboxes!

Christmas Phrases Set 1 link  or the Silhouette Store Merry and Bright link!

Silhouette Tutorial with Tya – Custom Card Sentiments

Hi everyone- Its Tya here to share with you a fun and easy Silhouette tutorial! I love using Lori’s shapes in all sorts of fun ways. Today I wanted to share with you how to add a custom sentiment to a card front.

For my card base I used Lori’s A2 Snowflake Ornament Card that you can find here in her SVG shop and here on the Silhouette website.

As you can see, I removed the snowflake from the card front and added some festive holiday sentiments on my card front instead using the handy subtract tool in the Silhouette software. Let me show you the steps that I followed to make the cards.

1- Ungroup the shape and delete the snowflake.

2- Grab the card front. Using the Draw a Rectangle tool, draw a 1.5×4.5 inch box right in the center of the ornament.

3-Open the modify window, select both shapes, and then click on subtract.

4-You will now have the top and bottom section of the shape with a space in the middle.

5- Type out your sentiment. I typed the word Merry in all capitals using the LW Block font I downloaded from the Silhouette store. I suggest using block fonts, or fonts with a serif on them for this technique. I also like to use capital letters just to make things easy and even. Resize your sentiment so that the letters slightly overlap the top and bottom lines of our space we cut out of the middle.

6- Select  just the top section of the ornament, right click and click on make a compound path. This keeps the hole in the top section of the ornament.

7- Select the whole shape, right click and select Weld. You can see now that the shape of the ornament is still intact, and we added a custom sentiment to our card front – this is a fun way to add a personal touch to your cards and to get more use from your card shapes.

Here are all the cards I made using this technique. I really enjoyed using Lori’s Christmas Cheer Echo Park paper line for my cards. The colors just pop! Love it! For this card, I used the Merry Christmas flourish phrase found here and here.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and letting me share this tutorial with you! I hope that you will give this nifty technique a try! And I would love it if you would stop by my blog and say hi! Happy Holidays and Happy Crafting!