I Tri and Craft

thoughts from a mother of boys, a marathoner, a triathlete, a crafter, a wife, and a scientist

Category Archives: Card Catalog


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Custom Birthday Party Invitations using Silhouette’s Print and Cut

I feel a little behind this year.  Ian’s birthday is next month and I have only been working on his invitations for about a week.

Ian decided in December that he wanted a Ninja Turtle birthday party.  I knew it was on the list of parties but didn’t know he wanted it this year.  (He has the next six birthday’s planned, yep, he takes after me.)

I decided I wanted his invitations to be a pop-up card with the front as a sewer cover.  I designed them knowing I would need to use my favorite thing about the Silhouette.  It’s Print ‘N Cut feature!

It is the main reason I got it and it just so happens that this month’s Silhouette Challenge was to make a project using this very thing I love so much.

MSS_TMNT Birthday Invite

 

I started with a picture of a NYC manhole cover.  I used Photoshop to make the sewer cover look a little more comic-booky.  I couldn’t find a TMNT one with out words on it, and while I could have altered it in Photoshop to remove the words, I just didn’t want to go the trouble, this was easier.
MSS_TMNT Birthday Invite

 

I had thought about having just a circle card, but the pop-up part would have been to small, or the circle card would have been too big. So I used a card template from SVG Cuts Haunted Forest kit.

I needed something above the manhole cover, and I didn’t want to use a solid color so I used a picture of NYC that I found on one of the TMNT sites.  Since the angle of the city is from the street it worked perfectly.  For that part and the sewer cover I used the fill with pattern feature, or more accurately, I dragged and dropped the pictures into the shapes.

I used foam dimensional tabs to raise the ‘Let’s Party’ text.

 

MSS_TMNT Birthday Invite

I didn’t want to apply the letters individually to each invitation.  I connected them with the offset tool, I made the offset as small as possible while still maintaining connections between each letter.

MSS_TMNT Birthday Invite

It was still in two parts, but that was better than 9 parts.

I made the “Ian is turning 5” part in Photoshop and traced it in Studio.

But a TMNT party invitation would not be complete with out some Ninja Turtles!

p.s. I decided to use the Old-School version from my childhood because I like them the best.

MSS_FebChall07

I traced a PNG copy of a picture of the four of them coming out of a sewer.  This was the part that I wanted to use as a pop-up.

MSS_TMNT Birthday Invite

 

 

It is pretty amazing how close and accurately the Silhouette cuts with the print ‘n cut feature.  I could even cut out the little spaces on the bottom that would have been white after printing.  There is no way I would have been able to cut that out by hand.

MSS_TMNT Birthday Invite

 

The party information will be printed out on vellum and attached to the bottom of the inside. I decided on vellum because I didn’t want the inside to be white.  I could have printed it on colored paper, but with the size of the card I couldn’t get two on one page, and I hate wasting paper.

Stay tuned for how the party turned out and all the other things I will make, although you will have to wait till a couple of months.

 

Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?

My Silhouette Challenge buddies and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so pursue the projects below for a wealth of Silhouette inspiration!  With a heavy emphasis on hearts!

Print and Cut Rebus Valentine Tigger Printable Heat Transfer T-Shirt Love You Valentine’s Jar {tutorial} + Print & Cut Blog Hop Valentine BINGO with {FREE} Printable and Cut File DIY Conversation Hearts Temporary Tattoos {Heart} Dance! Custom Birthday Party Invitations using Silhouette's Print and Cut Milk & Cookies Valentine's Treat Print & Cut Valentine's Day Banner Old wooden box Love Print and Cut Fabric Labels Be Mine Banner Love is all you need - Print & Cut Valentine Journal Cards Free Printable: Snickers Valentine Tag Labor & Delivery Nurse Thank You Bags Valentine Robot Shirt with Print and Cut Heat Transfer Vinyl Print and Cut Fish Valentines 3D Print and Cut Magnets (And Tons More Silhouette Print and Cut Ideas) Baby Month Stickers with a FREE cut file Super Easy Print and Cut Journal Card Valentines Simple Silhouette Valentine Card Valentine Hugs and Kisses Canning Jar Craft Frozen Inspired Tattoos Be My Valentine Mini Album Print and Cut Valentine Pudding Cup Wrappers - February Silhouette Challenge Print & Cut Birthday Invitations

1. Clever Someday // 2. TitiCrafty // 3. GingerSnapCrafts.com // 4. My Paper Craze // 5. Simply Kelly Designs // 6. Little Blue’s Room // 7. Mama Sonshine // 8. Small Stuff Counts // 9. Dragonfly & Lily Pads // 10. GiveMeAPaintbrush // 11. Please Excuse My Craftermath… // 12. Barb’s Life // 13. GetSilvered // 14. Lil’ Mrs. Tori // 15. Minted Strawberry // 16. unOriginal Mom // 17. Where The Smiles Have Been // 18. Persia Lou // 19. Silhouette School // 20. From Whine to Whine // 21. DailyDwelling // 22. Creative Ramblings // 23. Paper Garden Projects // 24. It Happens in a Blink // 25. Perfectly Fabulous // 26. Adventures in All Things Food // 27. Create & Babble

Dawn Marie

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The Christmas Card of 2014

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

I actually got our fist batch of Christmas cards out this week.  When I order cards, I just order extra, but when I make them I always make less at first.  I don’t want extra hand-made Christmas cars lying around, because they have the kids pictures on them, I can’t use them for next year.

My sister had always sent out Christmas cards with a picture of her kids.  For Ian’s first Christmas we decided that we would have one picture done with all three kids.  That way we can send one card to all our joint family and friends.  Almost every years since (except last year, because I didn’t do cards last year) we have sent out a joint card.  Typically I just order them, but not this year.

This year I decided to go back to making my own cards, because I can just use my Silhouette Cameo.  It will be easy peasy.  Unless you are like me and decide you need to make a Christmas card with like a hundred pieces.  Needless to say they took a little longer than I thought they would.

We went to a local mall where a few times a day they release bubble snow in the atrium. I took a picture of the kids in the falling snow and thought it would be a great idea to make a shaker card like a snow globe.  I used this snow globe file from Bird’s Cards, which is a great resource for free card files.

Back to the pictures, I didn’t like the mall and all the strangers in my background so I went a head and used Photoshop to ‘fix’ it.

MSS_XMas Cards Orig

 

MSS_XMas Card Edited

Doesn’t that snowy tree scene look so much better?  (Which was a free desktop background file)

While the three older kids did a great job taking a group picture, Sid didn’t cooperate all that much.  I had many wonderful pictures with the other three, but no Sid.

MSS_Xmas Card Boys

 

For the picture of the boys I used this picture in front of the silver tree they had up.  There wasn’t a good picture of those two with the snow.

So, you wanna see how the card turned out?

MSS_Xmas Cards 2014

MSS_XMas Cards 2014

MSS_XMas Cards 2014

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

p.s. family and friends, there is another batch going out, so don’t worry if you haven’t gotten yours yet.

 

 

Dawn Marie

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Thank You Gift ~ Mini Canvas Picture

This summer I ran a half-marathon located in another city.  The location wasn’t that far, maybe an hour or an hour and a half from home.  But when you need to be there at six in the morning that is very far!

So my cousin and I decided to stay the night before the race.  The race was in the wine country and there are not a lot of hotels around there.  But there are a lot of bed and breakfast places.  The other thing the surrounding city had was rooms for rent located in people’s houses.  You could rent the room, like a bed and breakfast, but there wouldn’t be other guests.

As it turned out my cousin had a friend who grew up down there and that friend’s parents still live there.  And they had a room that they rent out to guests and they were gracious enough to let us stay the night there.  Because of their generosity, I want to make them a thank you card and a little gift.

MSS_Thank You Gift

I first used some crayons from my son’s art kit and made a little rainbowish pattern on a mini canvas.  The min canvases and easels can be found at Michel’s Craft Store and are about 3″x3″.

MSS_Thank You Gift

Using my Silhouette Cameo I cut out the dandelion, floating seeds and words out of different colored vinyl.  Because of the waxy nature of the crayons and the texture of the vinyl I went ahead and sealed it all with some Mod Podge, then added the adhesive rhinestones.

I thought the words ‘relax’ and ‘breathe’ fit well with the room they let us use.  It was a very calming house and atmosphere, which was just the thing we needed prior to our race.

MSS_Thank You Card

 

I also designed and cut out this thank you card using my Silhouette Cameo.

 UPDATE:

My dutiful sister has informed me that the canvas says ‘breath’ when I intended it to say ‘breathe’

*sigh* such is my life. it is always after I post it that she finds the errors…

 

 

Dawn Marie

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Birthday Card Challenge

 

I decided to participate in another challenge with SVG Cutting Files.  This challenge is for birthday cards, the main focus should be something purchased from SVG Cutting Files.

I found it a little more difficult to make a card without someone specific in mind.  I knew I wanted to make a Halloween birthday card at least, but in order to get the free files associated with the challenge I had to make two cards.

MSS_Halloween01

Since I am a scientist I thought I need to make a birthday card using the Science Rocks kit I had.

MSS_Chemistry04

I made the card base to look like a benzene ring and used the science girl and test tube rack.

MSS_Chemistry01

Inside it says “it has been scientifically proven that too many birthdays will kill you.”

MSS_Chemistry02

 

I love using clear sticker paper for glass elements, like the test tubes and her goggle lenses.

MSS_Chemistry03

For the Halloween birthday card I used the Chibi Werewolf file.  I had actually purchased the set for the mummy, but the werewolf was perfect for this idea.  Inside it says ‘Have a howling good birthday!’

MSS_Halloween02

 

MSS_Halloween05

 

I designed the card base to be like a haunted house.  I used sketch pens to draw the spider webs in the windows.  Parts of the tree are not glued down so the stick out for some dimension.

MSS_Halloween04

I also used dimensional foam tabs to pop out the ‘roar’ word balloon.

MSS_Halloween03

I, of course, used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out all the elements for the card.

Don’t forget to go to the challenge page and see all the other amazing projects.

 


Dawn Marie

 

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This card is available at my Etsy Shop.