Traci – Page 4 – Lori Whitlock

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.

1 Screen Shot 2013-06-10 at 4.53.33 PM copy 2

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.

2 Screen Shot 2013-06-10 at 5.09.41 PM copy

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.

3 Screen Shot 2013-06-10 at 5.09.53 PM copy

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.

4 Screen Shot 2013-06-10 at 5.11.07 PM copy

Play with the character spacing (found toward the bottom of your text style window) until you like the way the word looks.

5 Screen Shot 2013-06-10 at 5.11.33 PM copy

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.

6 Screen Shot 2013-06-10 at 5.12.21 PM copy

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”.

7 Screen Shot 2013-06-10 at 5.13.06 PM copy

Now your entire image is red and will be cut.

8 Screen Shot 2013-06-10 at 5.13.11 PM copy

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

Are you ready for Mother’s Day next weekend? When I saw this adorable project by Brigit, I was inspired and hope you are too. Brigit says…

I first saw the 3 Little Flower Pots set from Lori’s store I wanted to make it right away, it’s so adorable. I paired it with the Tree Shaped Card for a cute little unique gift set, perfect for Mother’s Day or just to give someone special!

The digital paper and elements are from Lori’s Sweet Memories Collection, I didn’t want a traditional green tree so the flower pattern was just what I was looking for. Everything was printed and cutout on my Silhouette Cameo.

The 3D flower I downloaded from the Silhouette Online Store and the leaves are from the 3D Flower Set 8. I used utee (ultra thick embossing enamel), on some Limeade Trendy Twine for the stem so it would stand straight, I really love how these turned out. I also used some Tickled Pink Trendy Twine on the planter box with a cute little button.

For the faux stitching I added an internal offset to the tree top and trunk and changed the lines to dashes, it’s a fun way to add stitching. The tag is attached with some Tickled Teal Trendy Twine.

Thanks for stopping by, if you make this set I would love to see, you can post on Lori’s facebook page here, or add a link or on my blog post here. To check out Brigits blog you can go here.

Next we have an awesome mini album by Traci! Both of these projects took my breath away! Way to go ladies!

Traci says… “Spring has arrived here in Georgia, but before we know it, these warm days will turn into the hot days of summer! Since I’m a little behind on scrapping last summer’s photos, I decided to make a quick mini album to get a little caught up. This fun cascading album is one of my favorite new digital cutting files from Lori. She has several of these cute albums, and they all have different edges. You can use the same edge throughout the mini, or mix the edges up for even more fun!

The title is also one of Lori’s designs — I love how I can pull both up on my computer and size the title to fit the album perfectly!

The paper and embellishments are from Echo Park, “A Perfect Summer” by Lori. So cute!

For the first and second pages, I used several pieces from the chipboard sheet. I also layered one of the adorable brads on the camera to give the page a little shine.

What would summer be without the sun? When I saw this chevron edge circle it reminded me of a sun and I thought it would be a cute spot for a round photo.