Category: Tutorial

Silhouette Tutorial Matching Colors with Traci

Hey Lori friends!
It’s Traci here with a tutorial for matching your Silhouette print & cuts to your favorite card stock.  Have you ever created a print & cut, only to find that after you printed it, it really didn’t match the paper or card stock you were using?  Maybe the greens were too blue, or the yellows were too orange?  Well, there are a few ways to solve this problem, and today we are going to focus on matching your card stock.
Before we get started, I will add one disclaimer…much of this technique depends on the quality and level of the ink in your printer.  If you are low on ink, the colors may not be as true as you might want them to be.  But I encourage you to try it and see how it works for you!
I use many brands of card stock in my projects, but for the purposes of this tutorial, I am going to use Bazzill.  The reason for this is because in order to use the Silhouette software to match your colors, you need to know the RGB code for each color.  Bazzill provides a few different ways for you to look up a color’s RBG code.  They have a paid app in the iTunes store that I use.  You can use the app to search a card stock name and find the RGB code.  Another way is to purchase Bazzill swatch books — these have the RGB code listed right on the swatch.  I am in no way affiliated with the Bazzill company, and I am sure there are ways to find out the RGB codes for other brands as well.
So let’s get started:
First, pull up the shape you want to use in the software and resize it if needed.
I’m making a card, so I resized this cute subway art to fit the front of my card. (I later made it a bit smaller).
To resize, click on the Scale menu to specify dimensions.
Next, right-click on the shape to “ungroup” the pieces if you want them to be different colors.
Go to the Fill Color menu (little paint bucket icon) and find the “advanced options” at the bottom of that screen.
Next, highlight one piece of the shape that you want to color, and then input the RGB code for your card stock in the boxes on the advanced screen.
Hit enter, and your card stock color will pop into your shape.
Repeat the step above by entering the RGB codes for each piece of the shape.
My RBG codes included values for Bazzill Garnet, Parakeet, Hillary, and Black card stocks.
Next print the shape.  I am not cutting this shape out with my silhouette so I just sent the image to my printer.
If you have a shape to cut out after printing, be sure to follow the guidelines for a traditional print and cut.
I also repeated the steps above to change the colors on this adorable “Jolly” label.  Just be sure to
ungroup all of the individual pieces of the shape to change each color.
And here is my final card and ornament box.  Although hard to tell online, the colors match very well, especially
the greens 🙂  Have fun trying this on your next print & cut!
Lori Whitlock Shapes:

Silhouette Basics Class at Jessica Sprague

Did you know Lori has an all new class on using your Silhouette machine? If you have ever wanted to learn more about this amazing machine this is a great class to walk you through all the tools of the basic software while making this adorable project. In this class you will receive many custom shapes only available through this class + a Lori Whitlock font. You provide your own paper and time to cut it and this cute mini album can showcase your favorite photos. This is a self paced class available here at Jessica Sprague. Normal price is $35 but until the end of the month you can pick it up for $26.25.

Our talented Creative Team used these files to create books of their own. Mendi adjusted the size of her album and check out a few of her adorable layouts.

Silhouette Tutorial with Corri: Altering Shapes

Hi everyone!  I have a cute gift idea to show you today.  I love coffee and really enjoy sharing my favorite K-cups with my friends.  I altered Lori’s 3d box (design #27558) to hold to k-cups.

Here’s how I did it.

First enlarge the box to 11.565″h (keep aspect ratio).

 

Next draw a rectangle that is 3.5″h x 4.680″w.

 

Draw a circle that is 1.625 x 1.625 and then duplicate so you have two matching circles.

 

Select both circles and pull down from the object tab to align tops.  Select them both and then right click and select group.

 

Select the rectangle and circle and pull down from the object tab to align center-middle.

 

You can now cut this shape and then use a score 3/4″ in from the top and bottom

 

This piece is then glued inside the box to hold the k-cups in place.

 

I embellished the outside with a cup from this set and a pretty red chevron bow.

Silhouette tutorial with Mendi: Shaped Cards

I’m so excited to be sharing one of my all time favorite ways to use Lori’s adorable cutting files:  Shaped Cards!!!

There are so many different ways to approach shaped cards.  For my first card I took Lori’s Santa Tote and cut off the flaps that formed the box and removed the hole in his hat (which formed the handle) to transform it into a cute card instead.


For my second card I used Lori’s Present cutting file into a card, pairing it with her button cutting file to form the knot on the bow.  I also elongated the bow and bottom portion of the gift to so that the overall dimensions of the card would be 4.25 x 5.5 inches to perfectly fill an A2 sized envelope.  To form my card base I cut 2 of the overall outline of the gift from white cardstock by welding all the shapes together.


For my snowman card I transformed another one of Lori’s treat box using the 3D Snowman Tote cutting file.  Once again I removed the circle handle in the top and instead cut a bigger circle to form a pom-pom for my snowman’s hat.  Rather than cutting two to form my card base, I mirrored my base shape and overlapped the two ever so slightly and welded them together, using a bone folder to create my crease and fold the card after cutting.  To give a little shine to the eyes and mouth, I added glossy accents.


For my Nativity card I cut two of my background shape from the blue cardstock to form my card base and scored the back piece along the top so that my score line was parallel to the bottom of the card.  Martha Stewart’s Score Board is an awesome tool for this.  I then just added adhesive above the score line and adhered it to the other card base piece.

I printed my sentiment on the computer using iridescent gold paper and popped the top portion up with foam tape.  I finished off my card with random dots of Stickles “stardust” glitter glue to give the look of a star filled sky.


This last card is a favorite of mine using Lori’s Ice Skate diecut from her Christmas Winter Set (available in the Silhouette store). To create my card base I used the same method as I did on my nativity card.  To give my skate a more realistic look I also chose to cut the blade from iridescent silver paper.

I had so much fun embellishing the skate!  I chose to discard the curly cutout for the laces and instead used my We R Memory Keepers Crop-A-Dile to set a row of eyelets along the edge.  I then ran bakers twine through them and added a bow to the top.  To ground my sentiment I slipped one of Lori’s snowflakes behind a basic circle.


If you’re like me I do better with a visual example so I’ve created a video tutorial showcasing a couple different techniques I’ve utilized to create my shaped card bases.  🙂



Just to recap, today I’ve used the following cutting files designed by Lori which are available to purchase in her shop:
I hope you’ll give shaped cards a try! They’re so much fun!  🙂

Silhouette Tutorial with Brigit: Making Christmas Tags

Hi everyone!  Brigit here with a fun print n cut tutorial for you today.

These cute penguin Christmas tags are so easy to make and really helps save some time.

Start by getting the penguin  from the Christmas Icon Set, I love this set by the way, so many cute svg files in there.

Ungroup and fill each piece with colors, zoom in and layer the penguin together like I’ve done below, select all and group together.

You want to create an outline for your penguin, select him and go to the Offset Window, choose offset and change offset distance to .1 and apply.

Draw a 2″ x 3″ box and place it over the offset of the penguin you just created, like I have in the photo below, with both selected right click and weld or you can go to the Modify Window and weld.

Place a circle about .125″ on your tag, (this is for your twine or ribbon) and select both the tag and circle, right click and choose make compound path, this helps later when you choose to only cut around the edge of the tag.

Fill your tag with digital paper, I’m using Echo Park’s Reflections Christmas designed by Lori.

I added a 1.75″ x 2″ box and filled with beige then added the text so you could see it better.

Fill your text with color or if you just want it outlined make sure under the Line Style Window you check the Print Lines of Selected Shapes.

It’s important that you only cutout the outline of your shapes. I chose to cut my penguin out separately so I could pop dot him up.  Go to the Cut Style Window select tag and choose the Cut Edge, do the same for the penguin, it should look like the photo below.

In the Registration Window select Show Reg Marks

Under Page select your printer page.

I have a wide format printer so mine is setup to print on a 12″ x 12″ size paper.

I was able to fit 6 tags but you can re-size to fit more if you’d like.

I hope you find this tutorial helpful.  Christmastime can get very busy so these pnc tags come in handy when you need some quickly.

Thanks for stopping by, you can visit me at http://www.brigitsscraps.com