Category: Tutorial

Silhouette Tutorial by Traci

Hi everyone!  I’m excited to be sharing a neat tutorial with you today.  Have you ever thought about using photos in your Silhouette software?  I had never given this much thought until recently when I wanted a banner to match my pictures.  I will walk you through this technique today, and give you three different shape ideas for using photos with your Silhouette or Cameo machine.
First, choose a photo and a shape that you want to use.  For my layout, I knew I wanted a banner at the top of the page that matched my pictures. I work on a MAC, so I can just drag my photo into the software, but another option is to click on “File” at the top, hit “Open” and then choose a picture from your computer.
Once you have both your photo and shape(s) open, drag the shapes off to the side, ungroup and resize as necessary.
(For my banner, I didn’t want the little holes at the top of each piece so when I ungrouped them, I deleted the holes).
Enlarge your photo if needed to accommodate the size shape you want to cut out.
In order for you to see everything better, I made my shape lines black and thicker…but you don’t have to do this.
Move your shape(s) over on to your photo and place everything where you want to cut it out.
For mine, I wanted the varying leaf colors on each of my banners, as shown below.
I zoomed back out on this screen shot, but once all of your shapes are in place, go to the “Modify” window (little icon in upper right corner with the M).
With all pieces highlighted (photo and shape), click on “Crop” — this removes all areas which are not shared by at least two shapes.
Once you click “Crop”, you are left with the shape filled with your photo.
Here is another example that I used for this project.  I cut this cute picture of my son into a tag by following the same directions as above.
Once you have your shaped photos, you will want to highlight everything and open the cut style window (little scissor icon).
Be sure that the cut lines around your shapes are red by clicking on “cut” on the “Cut Style” menu.
Now you will treat this just like a Print and Cut.  (See an earlier tutorial on Lori’s website for Print and Cut directions).
Here is the layout.  As you can see, I also created offsets for the banners and tag to help them pop off the page a bit.
The offset feature can also be found in another tutorial on Lori’s site.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
Here is another example using a photo to create a matching title 🙂
Have fun with this technique!  I’d love to hear how you will use photos in your Silhouette software so
please visit my blog at www.artsyalbums.com and share your ideas with me!
Traci
Lori’s Cutting files used in this project:

Silhouette Tutorial by Corri: Thanksgiving Labels

Today we have Corri sharing these beautiful Thanksgiving labels, take it away Corri… 

Hi everyone!  We always host Thanksgiving Dinner at our house and set it up buffet style.  I thought it would be fun to have some cute signs to label all the yummy dishes.

I started with this bracket label.   I re sized it to 4″h x 4-1/2″w (make sure the aspect ratio box is NOT checked)

Then on the replicate menu along the top select fill page.

This feature allows you to adjust the size of the cut to make sure you get as many as possible from one 12 x 12 sheet.   The bracket points on the left and right make it very easy to line this up for scoring.

I cut some pumpkins and flag shapes to add to my buffet markers for a useful and easy way to dress up Thanksgiving dinner.

These could also be used as place markers or treat bag toppers. You could add some candy or a cookie to a bag and then staple this to the top.  The paper I used here is from the Echo Park – Reflections Collection that Lori designed.

Silhouette Tutorial: Sketch Pens

Have you used the Silhouette pens yet?  Well I have and have found that they are so fun to use and very versatile.   Today I have a few simple examples of how you can use the pens and then a tutorial to show exactly how easy it is to create with your own set of pens.
Lori has a bunch of fun Life Cards in her shop and I so I want to show you how you can embellish or journal on these cut files with the Silhouette pens.  My first example is a 3×4 Life Card that has a speech bubble cut into it.  I simply typed a title in the space of the bubble using Lori Whitlock’s cursive sketch font.  I’ll explain the steps on how to draw and cut your shapes below.
My second example uses the same Life Card but this time I am demonstrating how you can use the pen to do your journaling.  No need to do print and cut.  Just use your Silhouette pens. Lori has plenty of fonts to use for your journaling and the pens come in many colors so you’ll really be able to personalize your cards perfectly.
My third example is part of my tutorial.  When cut in it’s original shape, the hearts are actually cut out.  In my version I show you how you can draw the hearts instead of cutting them.  This simple technique will extend the capabilities of your digital cut files tremendously.
I’ve put together some screen shots to show you exactly what you will do to duplicate the card above.

1.  Here is what my original Life Card looks like.  I ungrouped it from the three other cards that came with it and left it the same 3 x 4 size.

2.The first thing that you will want to do is to make sure all of the pieces in the shape are ungrouped.  For this particular file, the hearts and the card shape have been combined into a compound shape because the hearts are normally cut outs.  So before you ungroup the piece, you will first need to, click the image, then go to the top menu and select Image and then Release Compound Shape.  You will then see your shape look like the picture above.  The hearts are there, they are just underneath the card piece.  (Note:  Not all files will require you to release a compound shape.  If your shape is not a compound shape, then you can just ungroup, and move to step 4)
3.  Then select all, CTRL-A, and ungroup, CTRL-U.
4.  Now we are going to go to the Cut Style menu.  This will make it easier for you to see all of the pieces of the file.  As you can see, when the Cut Style menu is open, the lines that will be cut are outlined in dark pink.  Changing the options on each of the cut lines, is how we are going to create using the Silhouette pens.
5.  The first thing we want to do is to select the outside line of the card.  When it is selected, click on the option No Cut.  This will mean that when we replace the blade with the Silhouette pen, that outline will be ignored, or Not Cut.  The pen will only “cut” or draw the hearts.  Do not change the option for the hearts at this time.
6.  Now it is time to draw the hearts.  When you click the Silhouette Cut Settings button, your view of the card will change back and you will only see the card piece again.  Don’t worry, the hearts are still there.
7.  Place your paper on your mat and load it into your machine.  Replace the blade with your selected color of Silhouette pen in the blade holder.  Make sure to close the blade holder by turning the blue piece.  Go to the menu on the screen and change the Silhouette settings to the Preset, Silhouette Sketch Pen.  Then click cut.
When it is done, do NOT unload the mat from the machine.
8.  Now we are going to cut the card out.  Go back to the Cut Style menu.  We want to cut the outside line and not cut the hearts this time.  The easiest way to do this is to Select All, CTRL-A, and then click No Cut.
9.  Then click the outside line of the card, and change that to Cut.
10.  Then go back to your Silhouette Cut Settings.  Take the Silhouette pen out of the blade holder and replace it with the blade.  Lock into place.  On the Cut Settings menu, select the Pre Set setting that corresponds to the type of material that you are cutting.  I was using white cardstock so I chose the Cardstock setting.  When ready, click cut.  Unload machine and take off your Life Card.
Here is one more example of the heart Life Card.  To do this, I selected certain hearts each time I sent it through the Silhouette machine to “cut/draw” and each time I switched out the color of pens to create the rainbow effect.
Lori Whitlock supplies:
Life Cards  (Silhouette Store)
Here & Now 6×6 paper pad by Lori Whitlock for Echo Park
Other Supplies:
White Cardstock
Silhouette Pens- original colors

Silhouette Tutorial Print & Cut by Mendi

I’m excited to be back today to share a Silhouette video tutorial with all of you!
Today’s card and video shares several little tricks and tips, but my primary focus was to share how to take one of Lori’s many versatile shapes and to personalize it to create your own customized “print & cut” file.  The creative possibilities using this basic idea are endless which is really exciting!
I decided for my card it would be fun to make a chalkboard themed speech bubble to match the feel of Lori’s “Here & Now” collection using one of her everyday shapes, sentiments and digital paper files.
To create my project I used the following cutting files designed by Lori:
Patriotic Icons (Ice Cream Cone)
Heart Flowers (Pom Pom–Silhouette Store Only)

The chalkboard paper I used can be purchased at Jessica Sprague here:

Silhouette Tutorial by Brigit: Polygon Tool

Hi everyone, Brigit here, Today I have a tutorial using the polygon tool to create cutouts from the acorn box to make this luminary.  It’s a fun and easy project that looks so pretty when done!

Import the acorn and resize it to 15.5″w with aspect ratio checked. Now ungroup, you can move the other pieces off the mat, (the hole on the lid ungroups also so make sure you group it together again with the lid before you move.)

On the first panel zoom in close, select the Polygon tool, click in one corner then the second, third, forth and back to the first to form your shape like I did here in blue, don’t worry about being precise.

If you double click on the shape you will see 4 dots in the corners, click on them and you can easily adjust the lines if need be.

Now select the shape you just created, go to the offset window and select internal offset, I used a .250 offset distance.  Delete your original shape, you just want the internal one.

Continue and repeat the same steps with the next 5 panels.  After you finish the last one, select the whole acorn including the shapes you just made, go to the modify window and select Make, you can do this after each one if you don’t want to worry about moving it but I just use the undo if that happens.  This is how it looks filled.

With the knife tool I cut leaving just enough to folder over at the top and some off the side flap, you don’t have to be exact, leave more you can trim with a scissor if you have too.  Tip, when I was cutting the flaps after the third one from the left I lost one of the bottom lines, so I ctrl z (undo) selected the whole shape again, and used make a compound path.  I could continue cutting the other flaps without losing the cut line.

The last thing you need to do is make the vellum pieces so use the polygon tool again and draw inside the score marks on one of the panels, you’ll need 6 of them.

Here’s how the body of the luminary looks with the vellum pieces.  Make sure you glue the vellum on first and then fold over the top flaps before you assemble.  Follow Lori’s video here for the instructions on putting the rest of the acorn together.

To decorate I used the flowers from the 3D Flower Set 5 and the leaf that came with the acorn.  I embossed the vellum and rubbed a little distress ink over. Paper is from Echo Park’s Reflections Fall Collection designed by Lori, it’s so beautiful, love the stickers and chipboard pieces too!  Finished with some Thanksgiving Orange Truffle Trendy Twine, a cute little button and sentiment from the paper collection.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial, you can visit me at http://www.brigitsscraps.com