Sunday 31 July 2016

Converting a Printable Quote into A Cut File - Harry Potter T-Shirt





Hello, Karen here - I recently saw a set of Harry Potter quotes which were free printables and thought 'one of those would be fab on a T-shirt for Gracia' so I set about making one.


You will need:-

Silhouette Cameo/Curio/Portrait
Gold Glitter HTV
T-Shirt

STEP 1 - Tracing your design


  • Download your quote and open it in your Silhouette software

  • Use the TRACE tool to draw a square around the text (yellow square with blue centre on top menu bar. 
  • Uncheck the High Pass Filter and tick the Low Pass Filter and adjust the threashold until all of your writing is yellow. 
  • Select the TRACE button and your text will be traced.  Delete the printed text and you will be left with a cutting file.  Select your file and choose RELEASE from the MODIFY menu.  This will separate all the parts of the cutting file and you will be able to remove the little bits and pieces that have been traced but you do not want.  I also removed the names from the bottom of my file. Once you are satisfied you only have the parts you wish to cut select all and group.



STEP 2 - Cutting Your Vinyl

  • Next I drew a square around my text and under the OBJECT menu at the top left of your screen I chose MIRROR and then FLIP HORIZONTALLY. 
  • Finally I cut my text out from some glitter HTV and transferred it to my T-Shirt.  
I am really pleased with the result and am certainly going to make several more T-Shirts with Harry Potter quotes on them as I think they will make fabulous Christmas presents (sorry for mentioning Christmas in July but you can never plan too far ahead).






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Saturday 30 July 2016

Shadow puppet theatre




Hey there, it's Sara here. A period in my childhood, we used to live in Indonesia. There I discovered the shadow puppet theatre. It mesmerised me as a child completely. Now that its summer holidays, I thought it would be fun to create a shadow puppet theatre for my daughter, and see her get fascinated as I did when I was a child! I have chosen to have a woodland/ red riding hood themed puppet show, but you can add any theme you want, as long as you have a good shape, you can easily turn it into a silhouette and use it as a puppet.

Supplies needed:

Empty box
Black cardstock
Skewers
Light
Double sided tape
Colored cardstock
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD Design (ID #30844)
ASSORTED FOREST ANIMALS Design (ID #80812)
FREE BANNER2 FROM LIBRARY
FREE CLOUD FILE FROM LIBRARY
FREE PLUSBG FROM LIBRARY



1. Preparing your design:

Add the animals and red riding hood and resize them so they are similar size.


Put your cut settings on cardstock and cut your design using black cardstock. 
Using a hot glue gun, glue the shapes to the skewers.



Now to make the trees, create a rectangle, a circle and add the plus background design from the silhouette library.
Weld the cirlce and rectangle together. Duplicate your design and resize it so its a bit smaller.
I wanted to have the plus designs a bit different so I rotated them till it looked like x's.

Cut your trees using black cardstock.

To decorate the theatre box, I chose to use the theatre card design available at the silhouette store.

First I will use the curtain design. Only the pink parts.



Measure the box length and width to get the curtains in the right size to fit on the edges of the box.
Cut out a rectangle inside the box.


Create the grass using the grass design from the theatre card design. Ungroup, remove the offset pattern, mirror and weld together.


Using a double sided tape, attack the curtains. and add the grass in the bottom. Add a white paper on the back of the box to create the shadow effect.


I wanted to decorate the top part of the box, so I used the roof part from the theatre card and resized it to fit the length of my box. 


Then I attached it to my box.


Create the text "Theatre" using the LW Bubble letter font. Cut the text using glittered cardstock. You might have to adjust your thickness settings to higher because of the texture of the paper, but do a test cut before you start cutting your design.


Add the glittered text on top and your theatre is ready to be used. 




















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Friday 29 July 2016

Wedding Marquee Lights


Make DIY Wedding Marquee Lights with Silhouette Cameo & Silhouette chipboard by Janet Packer #wedding #diywedding #SilhouetteCameo #marquee #lights


I love marquee letters and thought it would be great fun to have some for my daughter's upcoming wedding: they'd look great in photos and as a decorative element at the wedding reception.  When I looked at the price tag for shop bought letters my first thought was "I can make those for a fraction of the cost", and I did!



The files are designed by Carina Gardner and the alphabet, numbers and a few other shapes are available from the Silhouette Design Store. The designer has already provided a tutorial on how the letters go together, so I won't repeat it here, but will just provide some information on the small adaptations I made and a few tips which I hope you'll find useful.




WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

For the Letters:
Silhouette CAMEO®
Silhouette 12" x 24" Mat (optional)
Silhouette Chipboard
Flexible cardstock or decorative paper
Battery operated light string(s) (10 to 20 lights per letter)
Card adhesive
Gel adhesive (and ideally a syringe applicator)

For the Stand (optional):
Canvas panel (mine is 60cm x 20cm)
Fabric
Fabric adhesive
Craft knife
Duct/Gaffer tape



Selection

There is quite a learning curve with these letters, especially if you haven't attempted a 3D project before. The letters with straight sides are way easier to put together than the curvy ones. I'd recommend that you do a straight sided one first (H, I, L, M for example) before attempting a curvy one (C, S etc).



Materials

Centre: The central (letter-shaped) portion needs to be very rigid as it provides an interior framework for the whole letter. The Silhouette chipboard is ideal as it cuts even the small light holes beautifully.  I used four layers of chipboard for the interior of each letter. Two would be sufficient if they weren't going to be handled much. The files provide 2 sets: one with holes and one without. Use one or the other, you won't need holes if you aren't using lights.



Outsides: The outsides need to be flexible (able to bend without creasing) yet strong enough to not separate at the perforated fold lines. I made a prototype entirely in heavy-weight card and found it didn't crease well around the bends. For the final project I used a rather unconventional media - wallpaper! It is an encapsulated glitter wallpaper and includes a bit of vinyl in the backing, making it both strong, flexible and cuts like a dream.





Lights

Number of Lights: I bought strings of battery operated fairy lights; three strings of lights (2 x 10 bulbs, 1 x 20 bulbs). The individual letters require different numbers of lights. According to the files, I needed 11 for the C, 13 for the Ampersand and 19 for the M. I ungrouped the holes from the centre and reduced the number to fit better with the light strings to 10, 11 and 19. As I was mounting them the Ampersand and M were able to share a bulb. If you are making stand alone letters you'd need to adjust to your string size, or have surplus lights to deal with.



Hole Size: The bulbs on the lights I bought were smaller than the holes in the files. I adjusted the size of the holes to 2mm on 2 out of  4 of the centre pieces  so the bulbs fitted snugly. If I'd done all 4, I'd have had difficulty forcing the bulb through (just 2 is more flexible).



Fixing Lights: To make the lights stay put in the completed letters I used gel adhesive applied with a syringe from the rear of the letters where the wires come through. It makes for a neater finish, but means the light strings probably couldn't be used for another project after.



Other file adaptations

Letter Size: The files make letters that are 6" / 15 cm high. I made the letters a little bigger by stretching the files for all three letters at once. I was able only able to do this because my paper was larger than normal and I used the larger cutting mat. Otherwise the letters are already sized to fit on the regular 12" x 12" mat.







Rear of letters: I cut additional centre shapes (with fold line and an offset) to cover the wires at the back of the letters for a neater look.




Platform

I covered the canvas blank with some hessian material using a staple gun to secure the fabric. In order to mount the completed letters I cut slits in the canvas and hessian where they would be hidden by the letters. However, to reduce fraying  I first laid down a strip of fabric glue around the future cut area before making the cuts.



The slits were big enough to allow each battery pack to pass through to the underside of the canvas. I then secured the slits and the battery packs with strips of duct tape in a position that leaves the on/off switch accessible.


I stuck the letters onto the platform with strong fabric glue. The letter C isn't able to stand by itself and needed extra support, so I additionally used some brads disguised with silver paper.




Finished Project

I was very pleased with the final result. Certainly not the easiest project that I've ever undertaken, but they do look very impressive and the bride is thrilled with them!




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24 by 12  cutting mat for Cameo