Silhouette UK: Add a Stand to Almost Any Design to Make Home Decor Items

Lion Head Cutout and FREE stand Cutting file by Janet Packer for Silhuette UK Blog

Hello,
Janet here with a tutorial on adding a stand to a design, enabling a flat design or even a card to be transformed into a piece of home décor. This involves welding the stand shape onto an existing design. In this post I show you how add this shape and have included a FREE file of the stand shape for you too.

I've used this glorious lion head paper-cut design by Nic Squirrell. There are two versions in the store a card, and a box; I used the card version.

The original card file is placed in a square, but I wanted it to sit within a circle. To do that I simply released the compound path and regrouped the lion head elements (omitting the square). Then I centred the design within a circle and then grouped them. For this lion head decor piece I also made a duplicate piece with the head placed at the centre a larger circle, just big enough to hide most of the stand.

To make a stand for the lion; I welded a series of rounded rectangles together and added fold lines. The two rectangles furthest from the head were made slightly smaller (pieces 4 and 5 shown below) so that the front piece leans back slightly.

You can make your own by following the diagram below, or just download the FREE file that I've made for you. Once you've opened the file you need to copy it on to the smaller of your chosen design pieces with it overlapping the bottom of the design (overlap it as much as possible without overlapping the cut-out design) centring it horizontally. You can adjust the dimensions to suit the size and weight of your project . Then just select both the stand and the design and Modify > Weld.

When you have cut out your design, adhere the two design pieces together and fold up the stand attaching the lowest section (labelled 5) to the back of the design pieces.

I added mine to the new gallery wall in my lounge (still unfinished in this picture).

I think its such a great design that I couldn't resist making an easel card with it too - with that beautiful mane it was the perfect card for my hairdresser!