Silhouette UK: Using the Silhouette Pen Holder

Hello! Bev here with a tutorial on how to use the Silhouette Pen Holder to create projects that you can use for cards, invitations, thank you cards and much more. The great thing about the pen holder is that you can use almost any pen!

What you will need:

Silhouette Pen Holder
Silhouette Cameo/Portrait
Pens
Cardstock

Step One:

Begin with a new file in your silhouette studio and choose what you would like your design to be. I decided on a card for our good friends little boy, and his upcoming celebration.

I filled the colour of the text on the screen as I wanted to get an idea of how it would look once it was drawn.

Step Two:

Setting up the pen holder. It looks complex but is quite simple once you recognise what each part does. The pack comes with 3 different sized pen grips. Small, Medium and Large. Small would be for your thinner pens, for example the staedtler fineliners, the medium for most gel pens and biros, and large for marker pens such as sharpies. You will get a good idea of what size you need by having a play around with the different grips.
There is also the actaul part of the pen holder which sits in your machine like a blade would. I found the best way of setting this up was to, firstly put the grip on the pen

Next, slip the pen into the holder until it reaches the end of the lid and then screw into place. Hold on to both of the elements until it is secure to prevent slippage.

Once the grip is screwed onto the pen holder, remove the cap at the end and the nib will be in the correct place.

(excuse the blurry image on this picture, I was trying to get a little too close I think)

Next, load the pen holder into your machine.

Load your cardstock onto the mat and go back to your computer. You will need to select sketch pens in the cut settings section of the program. If you would like to use more than one colour on your design, this is quite simple to do. Just ensure that the part you would like to sketch is set to 'cut', and all other parts are set to 'no cut'. Once the first part is complete, do not remove the card from the mat, or unload the mat. Simply go back to your screen and set the already sketched parts to 'no cut' and 'cut' the next part of your design.

Once the design has been completed, you can unload the mat and remove your design.

I used uni ball signo gelstick 0.7 and they worked out great for my project.