Friday, November 25, 2011

More Silhouette Play

As you know by now, my new time-waster is figuring out my Silhouette Cameo. Fortunately for me, there are a bunch of How To videos on YouTube that I can watch over and over again until the information registers in my pea-brain. Then as I'm trying it out myself, I go back to watch it again.

I just made this card with stuff I cut out using the Silhouette Cameo:

The hills were cut by hand, and the trees are actually stamped (shocker, I know!), but the silhouette kids and the JOY tag at the top were done in the Silhouette software.

Both these images are from the SU Welcome Christmas stamp brush set. I brought the image of the kids into the Silhouette Studio software and sized it to fit on a card. Then I chose to Outline it and the software drew the outline around the whole image. I then had the machine cut it out of Early Espresso. Done.

I got the How To's from this video by Kristina Werner. Mine was a bit easier since I only wanted the outline. I'm pretty darned excited about this.

Then I played with two other images from the same SU set - I brought in the JOY and the tag. I then erased the inside of the tag, leaving only the edge and dotted inside line. With the software I drew an outer offset so when it cut out, the original outer edge would show. I then sized the JOY to fit inside the tag.

Then it got fun! One of the things the Silhouette can do is print then cut! YEP! I first told it to print the tags, and part of this exercise creates what's known as "Registration Lines". These are later used for the cutting step.

Once you've printed, you put your card stock on the cutting mat and the machine will align itself based on the printed registration lines, then it will cut out your images perfectly. Of course, me being me, I didn't get it right until attempt #5, but still here's the end result:


That is a sheet of vellum, stuck to the mat and already cut out. I printed it on vellum, heat-embossed it since ink jet ink doesn't dry on vellum, stuck it to the mat, then it cut. Here's the registration lines I'm blathering on about:

The marks in red were printed when I printed the whole thing. I did not make these - the Silhouette did! It uses these lines to align itself so it will cut correctly. The blue lines show you the edges of the vellum.

You can see where I'd picked up the bottom left image to use on the card. :)

Here's that finished beauty again:

The kids are stuck on with Dimensionals to give it more ... dimension. I attached the tag by putting in eyelets and tying baker's twine through them. The only thing left for me to figure out is how to change the color of the image from black to brown. I tried many things, but alas, nothing worked. I figured the black on vellum wasn't so bad, but I still want to learn how to do that!

The reason I went with vellum is because the tags I cut perfectly out of Naturals White card stock covered up all the trees, and we can't have that, now, can we?!?! So I went through the whole exercise again with vellum. THIS is why it took me 4 hours to make this card. Non-stampers have no idea what we go through for our craft. NO idea. *wipes brow*

Okay, now that my day is almost over, I need to go play some more. Who knows what I'll cook up next! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

3 comments:

  1. Absolutely gorgeous! I am so impressed with your new toy!

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  2. You just jumped right into the whole Silhouette thing with both feet - I am impressed! I've had mine for over 2 years and just tried the print and cut feature last week. No need to get in any big rush about it, right? I can't wait to see what you do next! I love this card.

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  3. Oh man oh man. This is AWEsome. LOVE the way you layered everything & those cute silhouette figures. I just can't wait until mine gets here. 10 days or so and 430.00 later (tax UGH). But on the less whiny side: I had no idea it printed 'til I read your post. :-D I figured you printed on your printer & then cut with it in the Cameo. lol (my pea brain is WAY smaller than your brain!)

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I'd love to hear what you really think! :-)

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