Category: Tutorial

Silhouette Tutorial: A Fun Tip for Using Sketch Pens with Traci

Hi everyone!  I have a fun tip to share with you today for using your Silhouette sketch pens.
‘Tis almost the season for sending out Christmas cards, and if you’re like me, the task can often be so time-consuming that I lose sight of the meaning for sending them out in the first place.  This year I remembered I have a silhouette and sketch pens and it’s going to make creating my cards a lot more fun.
The sketch pen technique that I want to share with you today involves cutting a shape from inside an offset that’s been drawn with the pens.
So here is the card I created using this technique:
1.  First I started with Lori’s adorable Christmas Tree Pop Up Card.
I ungrouped everything and moved everything off to the side except the front panel with the tree.
2.  Next, I ungrouped this one shape so that I could move the tree over to the left side of the shape.
 
3.  Once I moved the tree over to the left, I had space to put a sentiment.  Using Lori’s Dot Sketch Font, I typed in the sentiment that I wanted to use and centered everything the way I wanted it to look once it was sketched.
4.  In addition to the sentiment, I also wanted an offset drawn around the tree cut out.  To do this, I highlighted the tree, and opened the offset window (6th icon from the right in the top toolbar).  I clicked offset and set it to .05 distance.
5.  For the next step, I moved the inside tree shape, and the outer card shape, off to the side.  These portions will be cut out, so I didn’t want them to get sketched when I insert my pen.
6.  Next, I loaded white paper into my silhouette cameo machine and removed the blade.  I replaced the blade with a red Silhouette sketch pen and locked it in place.  Then I made sure my cut settings were set to Silhouette Sketch Pens, and I clicked “Cut”.
7.  Here is an important step!  Once the sketch pen was finished drawing my lines, I didn’t remove or unload my paper.  The reason for this is because I want it to line up perfectly again when I go to cut the inside shape out of my tree.  So I left the paper loaded exactly as it was when it was finished, and went back to my software.
I highlighted everything that I had just sketched, and clicked on the Cut Style window.  I chose “No Cut” so that when I replaced my red pen with a blade, everything I just sketched didn’t get cut out.
8.  Next I moved my card shape (which IS highlighted to cut) and the inner part of my tree (which IS highlighted to cut) back in place. I made sure that I replaced my red pen with my cutting blade, adjusted the cut setting to card stock,  and hit the cut button again to tell my machine to cut out just those areas around my sketch.
9.  For the inside of my card, I repeated the steps above to create a personalized “sketched” message inside the card before I cut it out.
One last tip — I used a large needle to help thread my twine through the holes in the front of the card.
Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope I’ve given you a few new tips on using your sketch pens!

Silhouette Tutorial: Adding A Window with Corri

Hi everyone!  Corri here today with a simple tutorial to show you how to add a window and frame to your favorite treat bag.   I just love Lori’s gable box file….it’s so simple to assemble making it great for a last minute gift.

I love having the window in the box so you can get a peek of what’s inside.

To add a window to the box,  I selected a label from this set.

Size the inner shape at 2.5″w (check the aspect ratio box) center it on top of the gable box.

 

Size the outer label shape to 2.875″w and center the two shapes.  This will cut your frame piece.

 

I opened the tall pumpkin from this set. After cutting the two pieces,  I welded the stem to the base using the weld feature.  Select both pieces and right click and pull down to weld.

 

To create a shadow for your pumpkin, select the pumpkin, right click your mouse and pull down to offset.

Specialty Media Products with Christine

Don’t forget, today is the last day you can get these prices with this Silhouette promotion. And, with the FREE SHIPPING on all orders over $25 going on right now this is a pretty sweet deal!! Be sure to use code: LORI at checkout and you can shop right HERE.
Would you like to see some of the specialty media products in use? Christine has a very fun Halloween project to share with us today.
Have you got your Halloween decorations out?  I have, but I wanted to add a few more pieces and thought that this banner would be super cute to hang in my kitchen window.  As soon, as I saw the file, I thought glitter would be great on the bats and web.  I looked in my stash, no black glitter, so I remember that I had my Silhouette Double Sided Adhesive Paper Starter Kit which had all of the things I needed to make this banner extra fun!
The double sided adhesive paper cuts really easy.  Just make sure that when you send it to your Silhouette that you have changed it to the preset for this type of paper.
After it is cut, I gently lifted the outside portion of the paper and set it aside.

Then I used my pick tool and weeded out the middles of the letters and web. Below you can see the process.
In the starter kit, you get this great little spatula.  It makes lifting off the pieces very easy.  You want to make sure that you lift off all of the layers of your cut piece.
I probably should have taken a picture of me putting the glitter on the bat, but this was the first piece I did.  What you will need to do is lift off the white paper from the top of your piece.  You will see the sticky layer underneath it and then a bottom sheet that is yellow.  After you peel of the white paper, you can sprinkle glitter on it.  Be sure to mash it down into the sticky layer so that you get good coverage.
I always keep a few of the Silhouette mat cover sheets around and they come in handy when playing with glitter.  Just bend the sides together and put the excess back in the container.  Another tip I thought I would share is to use a lint roller to clean up the left over glitter that clings to your mat, table, and you! 🙂
In this picture, I am putting on the flocking material.  This also came in my starter kit.  It was the perfect spooky green for my letters.  The flocking really needs to be worked into the sticky part of your piece.  I took a pinch and then rubbed in many times to achieve a good coverage.
The one thing that I liked about this material is that when you pull off the yellow backing to stick it where you want it to go, it’s not super flimsy.  It doesn’t easily stick to itself which makes sticking it down and placing it just where you want it very easy.  Once it’s down, it’s there, so make sure you are careful.
Here is my finished banner.  This file comes with all of the pieces that you see.  It’s kind of a small banner when you first pull it onto your mat, so I sized it much bigger before I ungrouped it.  The banner pieces are around 4×5 but if you were putting this on your mantle, you would need to go much bigger than that.  I really love this banner because it is so versatile.  You could change it up with a few extra character files to a birthday or Christmas banner.
Lori Whitlock products used:
Other Products used:
Silhouette Double Sided Adhesive Starter Kit, use cod LORI for 30%, ends today!
May Arts- Web Ribbon and Cording

Silhouette Tutorial: Organizing Your Shapes by Mendi

Are you finding yourself with a growing collection of SVG files which you’ve acquired from outside the Silhouette store?  While it is fairly easy to import them into your Silhouette library, I’ve found myself really missing the color thumbnails that come with the shapes purchased directly from the Silhouette store.

I’m happy to say that with a little creativity I was able to find a couple different ways around this which have solved this problem and made a huge difference for me when I’m searching for the perfect shape from within my personal library!  Today I thought I would share my little tricks with you… (On a side note, make sure to click on the gear in the bottom right-hand corner and select 1080p to view the video at the highest resolution).



Of course no blog post seems complete without a project to share so I decided to create a card with the cutting files used in today’s video.


This card was made with the beautiful Reflections: Fall collection which Lori designed for Echo Park.  For my pocket, I used Lori’s folder cutting file by stitching down the sides and inserting a journaling card from the collection for a fun interactive element.


I hope you’ve found the tutorial helpful.  😉

Silhouette Tutorial: Fabric Transfer with Brigit

Hi everyone!!  Here’s a fun tutorial on creating a fabric transfer treat bag using SSDE.  It’s such an easy project and comes out great on these cotton muslin bags, so cute for a special Halloween treat.

I used Avery Light Fabric Transfer paper, but whatever you use make sure you read the directions, I believe with their dark fabric you don’t have to do a mirror image.  Other brands may be different also.

I used Lori’s Halloween Embellishments 1 set and the happy halloween from the Halloween Titles.  I ended up adding a witch’s hat to the ghost and a circle for the moon just to fill in the design a little more.

I ungrouped and colored all the pieces, you won’t see the ghost if you use white so add a black line around him, I made it a little thicker under the line style window and then checked print lines of selected shapes.  After you place everything where you want select all and group.

The bag I used is 5″ x 7″ so I resized my design a little larger then 4.5″ x 4.5″, I wanted some space on the bottom and top and some on both sides.

With your design selected click on the Replicate Window and select mirror right, you can move the original off the mat or delete it if you want.  Place the mirrored one in your printable area and print it out.

I cut out around the whole transfer leaving a little border, you could create a shadow layer and do a print n cut but I didn’t want to waste the top margin of my transfer paper.

Use a hot iron without steam, again read the directions of your transfer paper.  I recommend a hard flat surface, not an ironing board. Iron any wrinkles in your bag first so you have a nice area for your transfer

Here it is finished, I slowly moved my iron from side to side and then bottom to top for about 45 seconds.  The colors really came out great.  I tied some Trendy Twine to the end of the bag’s string and pulled it through till it came out the other end so I would have some nice Halloween twine as my tie instead.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this project, you can visit me at http://www.brigitsscraps.com, thanks for stopping by!!