Silhouette Studio | I Tri and Craft

December 8, 2014
by Dawn Marie 7 Comments

DIY Christmas Coasters ~ and a GIVEAWAY!!!!

‘Tis the season for giving, and there is nothing better than giving someone a hand-made gift.

Except being able to giveaway a new Silhouette Portrait or Cameo, that is.

That’s right, a wonderful group of bloggers and I have gotten together to giveaway not one, but two Silhouettes. These ladies have also came up with a variety of holiday projects to make with your brand new Silhouette. Just follow the links at the end of this post for some inspiration.

DIY Christmas Coasters

I thought I would share some of the gifts I have been making for Christmas this year.

I made some Christmas coasters from tiles using a couple different methods, including etching cream, vinyl and sharpies.

I love making etched glass items and thought how great it would work on glass tiles. I found these blue glass tiles, they are clear glass with a backing that is colored, and knew they would be perfect for a snow themed coaster.

Since the tile would be a coaster I wanted the majority of the surface to be rough with the design smooth. I cut my design out of scrap vinyl, I have been told contact paper works too, and transferred the design on to the tile.

I like to apply my etching cream right next to the sink. I lay down wax paper for a work surface, and use gloves to protect my skin. At the end of the etching time I try to scrape the etching cream back into the bottle. No need to waste! Rinse the rest of the cream off the tile under cold running water. Peel off the stencil and wash again with soap and water.

Please follow the directions on your etching cream and be safe.

Because the tile is thick glass the unetched parts refract the light and distort the design when trying to take a picture.

I absolutely love how these turned out, but the elegance of them is lost in translation. They do look lovely all wrapped up in a bow.

Did you know that etching cream will also take the glaze off ceramic tiles?

This is even harder to photograph because of how subtle it is.

My first thought was to make a minimalist snowman design with vinyl, but then I decided to take it one step further. I used a vinyl stencil for the snowman base and a few circles of falling snow. I then applied the etching cream to the entire coaster as above. This left a rough background with a shiny snowman and snow.

After etching, washing and allowing to dry for at least a day, I applied the vinyl decorations, using outdoor vinyl if I had it. I love how these turned out, they are impressive with just the vinyl but when you look close you can see the subtle outline of the snowman and snow.

But why stop there? Sharpies on ceramics are always a fun craft.

Since I am pretty sure my 4-year-old draws better than me, I use my Silhouette to cut out stencils for all my Sharpie work as well. As I did with these Rudolph coasters and they are fantastic!

After coloring I cured the ink by placing the coasters in a cold over, turning on the heat to 350°F, baking for about 30 minutes, turning the oven off and letting the coasters come back to room temperature slowly.

Using the same sharpie and stencil method I made some Christmas light coasters as well.

On one set of coasters I simply colored the lights in. On the other set I used the negative of the stencil and used scattered dots to draw the lights. I should tell you that I did not use oil based markers or ceramic pens. I cured them just as I did with the Rudolph ones.

Some of the colors (uh, all but the red and green) did not hold up as well with the curing process. *sigh, lesson learned. So, if you are going to cure them in the oven, use ceramic markers. Another option would be to seal them after coloring with a clear waterproof sealant. Sealing them is still probably a good idea anyway.

Not to worry though. They can just be recolored and then sealed. (which admittedly I have not yet done, but plan on doing)

These coaster would make great gift to with a new mug and box of hot chocolate, coffee or tea. *spoiler alert

Silhouette Giveaway!

I know, I know, here is the part of the post you are most excited about. As I said above, my Silhouette Challenge buddies in partnership with Silhouette America are hosting a mega-huge giveaway for not one…but two winners! The prizes up for grabs?

First prize: The NEW Silhouette Cameo Machine and Designer Edition Super Bundle! $406.93 value.

Silhouette CAMEO®
Designer Edition Software
Dust Cover
$25 Download Card
Four Essential Silhouette Tools (hook, spatula, scraper, pick-me-up™)

Second prize: Silhouette Portrait Machine and Rhinestone Starter Kit! $219.98 value.

Pretty sweet, huh? We want you to have the chance to get that Silhouette machine that might still be on your wish list.

To enter: just click on the image below or on this link, either will take you to the entry form. Because of my many blog friends who helped make this giveaway possible, you have 42 potential entries, which means a lot of winning power. So, hurry up and enter!

{This giveaway runs from today through Monday, December 15th at 11:59p eastern and is open to anyone 18 years of age or older with a U.S. or Canada mailing address. You can read the rest of the terms and conditions in the giveaway window. You only need to enter the giveaway on one blog.}

A Rafflecopter Giveaway

click on me to go to entry form

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!

1. Pineapples and Pinecones // 2. Simply Kelly Designs // 3. Architecture of a Mom // 4. Just a Girl and Her Blog // 5. Two Purple Couches // 6. Chicken Scratch NY // 7. Creative Ramblings // 8. One Dog Woof // 9. Ginger Snap Crafts // 10. The Thinking Closet // 11. Please Excuse My Craftermath… // 12. Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body // 13. weekend craft // 14. Dragonfly & Lily Pads // 15. Practically Functional // 16. Living My Given Life // 17. My Paper Craze // 18. The Kim Six Fix // 19. Home At Eight // 20. Queen of Everything // 21. Tried & True // 22. McCall Manor // 23. unOriginal Mom // 24. Create it. Go! // 25. From Wine to Whine // 26. GetSilvered // 27. It’s Always Ruetten // 28. Nearly Handmade // 29. Mama Sonshine // 30. Silhouette School // 31. It Happens in a Blink // 32. Create & Babble // 33. Sowdering About // 34. Where The Smiles Have Been // 35. My Favorite Finds // 36. Lil’ Mrs. Tori // 37. Designed Decor

October 22, 2014
by Dawn Marie Leave a comment

Etched Glass Hydrangea Vase

We are now at the point in our lives where we aren’t attending weddings every weekend of the summer.

It seems that you have two waves of wedding times. For the first few years out of high school it seems like your summer weekends are only weddings. Then there is a time when you don’t really attend any weddings, maybe one or two. Then about your early 30’s you start getting all the invitations to the rest of your friends weddings. After that, you may get one or two a year, and usually they are family members kids or for the wedding of someone younger than yourselves.

This year we only have two weddings. One of which we are traveling across the country for and one that happened in the summer.

The one we attended this summer was a wedding of one of my husbands friends. He is an artist, a very wonderful painter, and for his invitations he drew and painted a hydrangea bouquet. I thought the perfect gift would be a large glass vase with the same picture etched on it.

Turns out, his style of painting and my starting on the project late, made for the inability to trace the image and create a stencil.

So I did the next best thing. Found another picture of a hydrangea that I could trace, and made a stencil out of it.

I like the glass vases that have the word “flower” etched on it in some foreign language, usually in French. The groom is Irish and so I decided to use the Gaelic word for flowers which is bláthanna. Singular for flower would be bláth.

So I found a fancy font with swirls but it was a little thin, so I had to create an offset to make it a little easier to cut.

To keep with the floral, nature theme I made a card with a Cherry Blossom tree. I found this card base at Bird’s Cards, it’s a free download. I decided to make it a shaker card adding more cherry blossom flower and glitter.

Big glass vases that are already decorated can come at a larger price tag. By decorating it myself, not only could I make it more personal without breaking the bank, and on short notice.

October 7, 2014
by Dawn Marie 2 Comments

Running Motivation in a Temporary Tattoo

If you read my race recap about the half-marathon I ran this summer you saw that I made some motivational tattoos for my cousin and me to wear.

It was the first time I used the Silhouette brand Temporary Tattoo paper, but I knew that I would be using it again the following month for Sid’s birthday party. I ran into a few issues as a first time user and thought I would share them, in hopes that other’s don’t have the same troubles.

First I made my design. One of my favorite motivational quotes for running is “I’m not running half of anything. I’m crushing all 13.1 miles.” There are a few variations, but I like this wording the best. I made one for my cousin and one for me. I had room for one more quote, and since I had two arms I also used “The moment you want to quite, is the moment when you need to keep pushing.”

I sized out the space on my arm and made a box in Silhouette Studio. I then typed out my sayings and changed the fonts, sizes and colors for specific words. I then used the offset tool to create my cut lines around the words. Remember, anything that is white in your design will be clear on the tattoo, and your skin will show through.

My first instinct was to make a close-in offset, as I would when cutting other media.

Here is the problem: when you cut it, it cuts through the paper backing. So now you have all the words in different pieces that you would have to place on your arm individually. So again, remember that the tattoo paper is clear, and make your offset big enough that all the words cut as one piece.

And there is no reason you need to waste time cutting out the middle of your o’s or other inner parts since the paper is clear. Release the compound path,

select all the unwanted parts, then delete them.

Now you are left with a nice group of text that will stay together once cut.

Check out your cut lines, make sure you are not cutting out the words you are printing, but just the offset you just made.

Once you have your design and cut lines all set, flip your image horizontally. This is very important when doing something with words, or your words will be backwards.

The key to the temporary tattoos is Silhouette‘s print and cut feature using the software’s registration marks. I don’t know about you, but when I print and cut, I change the paper to ‘letter’ (because that is the size of the paper I print on) and adjust my registration mark settings to the smallest available. One day when I was printing something small I realized I don’t have to waste the whole piece of paper. I say ‘waste’ because once I printed the registration marks, I couldn’t reprint (for cutting) on that same piece of paper.

So I changed the size of the paper, I know it seems like a simple statement. But I made the paper size just larger than my image size, with the registration marks, and that left the rest of the paper blank, for use again! So simple, yet so helpful.

The tattoo paper is a bit pricey, about five bucks a sheet; the pack comes with two sheets and is priced at $9.99. You can find it on sale at Amazon, and sometimes through Silhouette. I didn’t want to waste any of the paper, and I wasn’t ready to print out the favors for Sid’s party, so I just adjusted the size of the paper to fit my quotes. That way I still had half a sheet of unprinted paper I could use again.

Printing.

First you want to make sure when you print, that you print the lines of the words, but do not print the lines of the offset. (Note: this feature is different if you are using V3)

Here is where I had the main problem that I really didn’t want to admit to anyone. It’s a little embarrassing.

I opened the pack of tattoo paper and pulled out the first sheet on top. The instructions say to print on shiny side then peel of green backing to apply adhesive material. So I printed on the shiny side.

My ink wouldn’t dry. I left it while I went to work, when I got home it still wasn’t dry. I wiped it off, tried different print settings, still wouldn’t dry.

I googled instructions looking for a video tutorial. Finally when watching my second video I wondered why their paper was white when my paper was clear with a green paper backing….

Maybe I have to use my own paper, but that seemed silly because the instructions talk about printing on the shiny side…

I went back to the package and looked inside it. Behind the two pieces of clear paper with green backing was two pieces of white paper with a shiny side.

hand hits forehead

Start over. Printed on the shiny side of the white paper, and ink came out dry and sharp. MSS_Tattoo Paper Pack

Followed directions by adding the adhesive layer. That is the clear paper with the green backing that I was trying to print on first.

This is actually a picture of the tattoos I made for my son, but this is how you apply the adhesive layer

Because I wasn’t using the whole sheet of paper, I used a paper-cutter to trim down both the white sheet and the clear adhesive sheet before joining them. Then used my Silhouette to cut out the tattoos.

They look great and just the motivation we needed.

Now that I am a pro at the temporary tattoos, I made some as favors for Sid’s party. However, I neglected to flip the image horizontally, so the words were backwards. There is always something with me, right? I decided to let it ride (yep, pun intended) as the guest were toddlers who really couldn’t read anyway.

I am already planning my tattoos for my Halloween costume!

September 24, 2014
by Dawn Marie 4 Comments

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.

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

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

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

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!’

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.

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

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.

I Tri and Craft

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

Tag Archives: Silhouette Studio

DIY Christmas Coasters ~ and a GIVEAWAY!!!!

DIY Christmas Coasters

Silhouette Giveaway!

A Rafflecopter Giveaway

Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?

Etched Glass Hydrangea Vase

Running Motivation in a Temporary Tattoo

Printing.

hand hits forehead

Birthday Card Challenge

This card is available at my Etsy Shop.

DIY Christmas Coasters

Silhouette Giveaway!

A Rafflecopter Giveaway

Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?

Share this:

Share this:

Printing.

*hand hits forehead*

Share this:

This card is available at my Etsy Shop.

Share this:

hand hits forehead