Silhouette UK: Welcome Gifts - adding text to Print and Cut Files

Hey there, Niki here with you today sharing some welcome gifts I recently made for a retreat I organise every year. I love using my Silhouette to make personalised gifts, and love that it takes a lot of the work out of this for me!

To begin with I wanted everyone to have a name card. Not everyone at the retreat knows everyone else and it can be awkward to be speaking with someone and not know their name so to solve that problem I made everyone simple cards. We sit in a U shape so everyone is facing everyone else. These name cards were therefore attached to the front of each table, with the name hanging down to the front, therefore visable to the whole room and no risk of falling over or off the table. I used the gorgeous Ballerina Script font from the Design Store, welded the names together and cut them out of black cardstock and I then simply glued them into place.

Next up was a little gift. Everyone was going to get a box of sweeties and I needed a label for the top of the box. I chose a Print & Cut file from the Design Store and opened it up on my screen. I set my page settings to A4.

Becuase this file was a Print & Cut file it came with the pretty label graphics already together with a cut line around the outside. Perfect, except that I wanted the label to also say something that wasn't already there: 'A little something for you.'

I wrote out my text using the same Ballerina Script Font, centered it and re-sized, then I selected my text and opened the Fill Color Window and clicked on a dark grey colour. My text turned into a filled grey text. At this point, it still has red cut lines around the outside of the text.

Next I had to print my label. I went to file, print and it popped out of my printed (with the registration marks on too). Then I had to send it to cut - I selected the text and clicked 'no cut' which greyed out the cut lines. The outside line remained red, which is the part I wanted to cut, so I sent it to my Silhouette. After my initial test, I managed to fit about 20 on my A4 page which I printed too and cut.

I also needed a box to put the sweeties in and the label on so I choose one from the Design Store. I went for 3D Candy Bar Holder but only used the inner part of the box, not the decorative bit around the outside. This was purely because I needed to make 33 of these boxes and I didn't have enough card in the same colour to make all 33 with the outside bit too! The boxes are matchbox style and the middle section that holds the sweeties slides out. These boxes were very easy to cut and construct.