Hello, its been all about gorgeous Silhouette Rhinestones on the Silhouette UK Blog this week. Today I have a home decor project to share using a sparkly custom rhinestone phrase over a flock heat transfer design of the Eiffel Tower. The rhinestones are applied after the flock, but the flock design is specially trimmed so that the rhinestones adhere directly to the cover's fabric rather than the flock.
Here I'll show you how to design, make, and apply your own custom rhinestone phrase decal. You'll find a heap of extra hints and tips along the way too. I also show you how to customise the flock design to 'knockout' the rhinestone pattern from the design over on my Crafting Quine Blog. So pop over there if you'd like to find out how to do that.
Materials Used
Silhouette Cameo®
Silhouette Studio® Designer Edition
Silhouette Rhinestone Transfer Kit
Silhouette Rhinestones
Silhouette Flock Heat Transfer Material
Blank Rectangular Cushion Cover
Size-matched Cushion Insert
Iron or Heat Press
Make Your Own Rhinestone Lettering
There are many rhinestone letters, words, and phrases available in the Silhouette Design Store, but none were just right for this Eiffel Tower design (#41675 by Samantha Walker). If you have Designer Edition or above, you can convert just about ANY font (and many designs) into rhinestone designs using the software's built-in rhinestone conversion function.
There is a quick overview of the software's rhinestone conversion function from Silhouette here. Access the options by clicking to open the Rhinestone panel (the gem icon).
Re-size your design before you start playing with the rhinestones. With the words selected, choose the size of rhinestones that you plan to use. You can toggle through the rhinestone effects to see which looks best, and change the space between the rhinestones (a smaller space gives better readability, but uses more stones). For script fonts, I prefer to use the Edge effect and reduce the spacing between the characters. TIP: keep a spacing of 0.025-inches or more, or the template may become difficult to work with. For this design I used 10ss sized stones and 0.025-inch spacing. The number of stones required is helpfully displayed at the bottom of the window.
Font Selection for Rhinestone Lettering
Don't panic if the lettering doesn't look great in the default font, it may well look better in another. Open the Text Style panel to choose another font. Better still, keep both Rhinestone and Text panels open at the same time (move the panels closer to each other to lock them together). Then, experiment with different settings as you try out different fonts (increase the character spacing if the letters appear to overlap too much).
TIP: Select the phrase, and with the font list open, jump down the font list using the keyboard's up or down arrows to see each font previewed.
Make a Custom Font List (MAJOR TIP)
I found that generally the Silhouette Design Store single line sketch fonts work well in rhinestones. To save having to search for each one, it is easy to make a custom font list, and then just try out fonts from the shorter list (useful when selecting fonts to use with sketch pens too).
They will then appear in the Text Style list with the heading that you give to a new folder in the font file structure. To make the new folder:
- open the Library
- click on 'Fonts' in the file structure to preview them in the right-hand panel
- right mouse click on 'Fonts'
- select 'New Folder'
- type in a name for the new folder
- drag font previews into the new folder.
I chose the Madilyn Sketch Font (#77519) by Rivka Wilkins.
Fine Tuning the Design
Click on Release Rhinestones in the Rhinestone panel to manually adjust the placement of individual stones. You can make extra stones by choosing the Freehand option, and click where an extra stone is required. Once this is done, I like to group each word in the phrase and change the distance between the words until they look well balanced.
Cutting the Template Material
When you are happy with your design, you'll be ready to cut it from the template material. This is a velvet-y self-adhesive media with a paper backing sheet. If you need to re-size your design at this point you may need to start over, as the hole size shouldn't be changed, or your template won't fit the rhinestones. Under certain conditions the hole size will remain constant, but the effect will look very different anyway, if re-sized significantly.
Select the setting for 'Rhinestone Template Material' from the material cutting list in the sent window.
I found that I needed to reduce the force setting, and could have reduced it a little more to achieve the perfect 'kiss cut' (cutting through the top layer and not through the backing sheet). Here you'll see that I a few holes on the 'o' and 'h' cut too deep and were left behind on my cutting mat.
Making the Rhinestone Template
Peel off the top layer (the template) and you'll find most of the waste dots are left adhered to the backing sheet. Remove any dots that remain in the top layer, and check the reverse of the design in case there are any stray ones lurking there. Smooth the template onto the chipboard piece included in the kit.
Making the Rhinestone Decal
Tip the rhinestones onto the design and gently spread them across the design with a light touch. The rhinestone starter kit contains a special padded tool which is very useful for this. The majority of the stones will drop into the holes gem side up. Place the wayward ones into place with a pickup tool (I couldn't find mine, but this tool proved perfect to move and turn over stones to complete the placement.
When your design is completely filled, brush away the excess stones.
Remove the textured backing paper from the sticky, clear transfer sheet (also included in the kit). Holding one end of the sheet in the each hand, away from the design, bring your hands closer to make a dip in the centre then carefully place that just above the centre of the design then quickly move it towards the design and let the sides drop over the design. Don't hover the sheet too close or static will lift the stones and mess up the pattern. Press it firmly onto the stones then peel it away from the template and temporarily store the decal on the textured backing sheet.
Applying the Rhinestone Decal
Align the rhinestone decal with your pressed vinyl design and then apply the design with an iron or heat press. Instructions for using an iron are included with both the template kit and the rhinestone packs. I used a heat press just slightly hotter than I had used for the flocked vinyl. Pressing time with a heat press will be less than that suggested for an iron. Remember to protect your design with a cloth or non-stick sheet while pressing.
When the rhinestones do not lift when a corner of the clear sheet is peeled up, allow to cool a little and then remove the sheet. Press with the protective cloth in place for a few more seconds. Then turn the cover inside out and press again for a few seconds more on the reverse of the design.
Turn the cover back to right side and the cover is ready to be put on a cushion insert and the project is done!
The template of course can be used over and over, and you'll find that you may get more than one use from your sticky transfer sheet. Just store it on the textured backing paper until you are ready to use it again.
If you haven't tried rhinestones before, I urge you to try them - the effect is dazzling.
Here are some other projects I've made with them for the Design Team. Just click on a pic to visit the page for that project.
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Let us know how you get on.
Bye for now,
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