Tag: creative team

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

 


Boo Jelly Bean Box with Anita

Happy Monday fellow Lori Whitlock fans.  Anita here and I made Lori’s Halloween Candy Card which you can find here in her store silhouette and here in the Silhouette store.  I cut a piece of acetate to cover the center hole to keep my festive jelly beans in.  You could put so many different treats in here including fun sized candy bars.

Thanks for looking and have a great day.


Lovebug Box with Corri

Hi everyone!  Corri here today sharing my take on Lori’s ladybug slip lid box.

To turn my ladybug into a “love”bug,  I  used the “release compound path” feature to remove the polka dots and replace them with hearts.

This little box would be great for classroom Valentine’s Day treats.  It’s  adorable on it’s own so I added just a couple of embellishments.  I cut a pieces of glitter cardstock to fit behind my hearts for a little sparkle and added a sticker from the Doodlebug – Sweet Things Collection and a twine bow.

Head over to the Lori’s SVG Shop to find more adorable treat bags and cards for Valentine’s Day.

Swing Through Assembly Tutorial with Corri

Hi everyone! Corri here today sharing an assembly tutuorial for the new swing through cards. These cards feature a cool swing through motion when opened….your friends and family would love to receive one.

When you cut the file this is what you will have.

I decided to cut an extra one of the red panels so I could have a different pattern paper on the front of my card.

First, apply your panels to the interior of the card.

 Apply the tree cut outs to the interior of the card.  Everything is laying flat on your desk right now.  Do not twist anything yet.

Next, apply the panel on the front of your card.  You’ll notice you can’t see the die cut tree that you adhered.

Now you’re ready to flip your trees.  You can see that they are scored.  With your card open flip the tree on the left side of the card to the left.

Flip the tree on the right to the right.

There is small glue tab on the left side tree.  Fold on the score line and apply glue.   Adhere the tab to the back side of tree on the right.

There you have it! Such a fun and interactive card!

Be sure to check out the big sale happening now in Lori’s SVG Shop.  Save 50% off your order of $20 or more!  What a great deal!

Silhouette Tutorial Bending Text by Traci

Hi everyone!  I’m excited to share a fun and easy tutorial with you today!  These steps will show you how to bend lines of text, either to create a phrase that wraps around an object, or to fit inside a curved shape as I have done on Lori’s adorable hot air balloon.
Here is the card I created with a curved “Thank You” cut out of the band.
First, pull up the shape you want to place your text in and resize it if necessary.
If there are multiple pieces to your shape, ungroup them and move everything to the side except the piece you want the word in.  Zoom in on your shape a bit, and chose the text option on the left tool bar.  As you type your word or phrase, a green box will appear.  Note that there will also be a little circle, with a cross in it, along the green line.
If you place your curser over this circle and click, you are able to drag your word into your shape.  When you hover the word over a line, the letters snap to the shape of the line.  To move your word up into the center of your shape, you will use the grey sliding bar that appears through your letters.  If you place your curser along that bar and slide upwards, your letters will move up.  However, in some cases, the spacing on your letters will also move in and start overlapping.
To prevent this, move your word over to the left so that you can see how much room you will have to increase your character spacing.
Play with the character spacing (found toward the bottom of your text style window) until you like the way the word looks.


Now you should be able to go back to the sliding grey line and move your word up into the center of your shape without the letters bunching up together.  You will notice once you’ve done this however, that your original shape line is now grey (no cut line).  This would be okay if you just wanted to cut out the bent word.

But, for this tutorial, we want to cut out the banner shape for the front of my balloon, so I will need to make this a cut line (red) again.  Highlight your shape and click on the Cut Style icon at the top.  In the Cut Style window, click the button that says “Enable Cut Style”.

Now your entire image is red and will be cut.


This is also a fun technique to use for cutting a phrase to wrap around a circle.  You would just snap your phrase on the outside line of the circle, rather than inside the shape.  I will post another project showing an example of this on my blog today, so I invite you to stop by Artsy Albums to check it out!
Thanks! Traci