Rocking Horse Baby Gift - Using an MDF Shape

What better gift for a new teacher mum than a chalkboard keepsake? Today I am sharing a project that transforms a plain MDF rocking horse blank using a white gel pen and Silhouette's Faux Leather Paper.

Here's what you'll need to re-create the entire project:

• Silhouette CAMEO®, Silhouette Portrait® or Silhouette Curio™
• MDF Rocking Horse Blank
• Black Cardstock
• White Gel Pen or Sketch Pen
• Silhouette Pen Holder
• White Faux Leather Paper
• Card Scrap
• Paper and Fabric Adhesives

This is what the MDF shapes look like before the transformation. At 18mm, these blanks are too thick to fit into even the Curio. The solution is to decorate and cut a card piece and adhere it to the face of the MDF shape. This tutorial will concentrate on how to get the shape into the software to enable you to decorate your own blanks of any shape.

To get an outline you could use your PixScan™ mat or even draw around them and scan the drawing into the software. As they were so thick, I scanned the actual blanks directly on my scanner bed, and opened the scan in my software.

Then I followed these steps: 

1. Open the Trace Window.
2. Click on Select Trace Area.
3. Draw a tracing box to (just) encompass the outline of the blank. 
4. Untick the High Pass Filter.
5. Click Trace

Note, I didn't move any of the sliders in this case, but you might need to. This is the result and it does look a bit alarming!

However, a single click of the mouse in a blank area of the screen transformed it to this.

Now, here's where the magic starts ...

Just click ion the two main horse parts whilst holding down the Shift key and you can move them away from the rest of the trace. Then Group them, and Make Compound Path.  Select and delete the 'rubbish'.

Check the outline for bits that look odd. On this scan there is a bit on the tail that needed point editing. Select Edit Points and click on one offensive Point (grey square) and click Delete Point. I deleted 3 points in total. To exit point editing just click on the Select arrow (just above) or any blank part of the screen.

There! now you are ready to start designing. You can fill with shapes, patterns and fonts from the store. I used LW Perfect Print and some hearts from the 11 Hearts file. Other parts were made with software's drawing tools and I used the outline as my cut line.

I used a white gel pen in the Silhouette Pen Holder to draw out the design, but you could use a white Silhouette Sketch Pen.

I cut the outline and then stuck the cardstock cutout to the MDF blank with paper adhesive. The saddle was cut from white faux leather paper and adhered with fabric adhesive.

Now you have the technique for tracing the MDF shape of choice.

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