FREE Design of the Week - It’s a Wrap with Printable Patterns - 17th July 2018

Hello, It’s Janet here using this week’s free file in the Silhouette Design Store - a lovely Tropical Leaf Printable Pattern.

Printable patterns are very versatile, and I’ve chosen to make some sheets of gift wrap for this week’s project. I’ve printed the pattern onto the largest paper that my printer can handle and used it to wrap a special gift. I’ll show you how to set this up in the Silhouette software to prepare it for printing. The actual print options available will differ from printer to printer. I used a large format,  A3+ Inkjet printer, and printed onto A3, 120 gsm, smooth, ultra white document paper. You can use a regular sized printer and join several sheets together if you don't have access to a larger one.

STEP 1: Adjust Paper Size in Silhouette Studio

Firstly set your page size to reflect the size of your paper (Page Setup window, Page Size tab, Size). My paper was A3 (297 x 420 mm, approx. 11.7" x 16.5"). If you are using paper of a non-standard size, enter the dimensions in the Width and Height boxes and press Enter. Turn on Show Print Border, and your see the current print page setting for your printer displayed as a grey line.

STEP 2: Adjust Printer Settings

From the top menu change your printer page settings to match your paper (File > Print Page Setup). Select your printer and the new paper size. Select Borderless if your printer has that option and you want the pattern to print right to the edge. The grey line will now be aligned with the paper edge on your virtual mat, and is barely visible.

STEP 3: Prepare the Paper

Using the Drawing Tools, draw a rectangle to match the size of the paper.  Select the rectangle, open the Fill Panel (artist palette icon) and click on the Fill Pattern tab (dotted square). Scan through the pattern thumbnails and select the Tropical Leaf pattern. The rectangle will then be filled with the leaf pattern. Click on the Advanced Options arrow to reveal more options. You can adjust the pattern scale using the Scale Pattern slider. The picture below shows the pattern at 100%.

This picture shows the pattern at 20%, and a grid is now visible, showing the edges of the pattern 'tiles'. There is no visible grid if the pattern is a seamless design, and in other tiled designs the grid can be less obvious. Choose a setting which you find attractive, I chose to print the paper at 100% and 50% to see which I liked the best.

STEP 4: Print the Paper

Send your paper to print (from the top menu, File > Print). The larger scaled paper is on the left, and the smaller one has been used to wrap the parcel.

STEP 5: Additional Decoration

I used the decorative elements from the Hawaii Bag by Daniela Moscone (#197821), layered with double-sided adhesive foam tape, and finished them off with drops of pink dimensional paint (Nuvo Crystal Drops).

If you haven't printed your own wrapping paper before I urge you to to try it. Imagine the variety of gift wrap you could make (there are currently around 3500 printable patterns available in the Silhouette Design Store).

The Tropical Leaves Pattern (#269750) is available for free until the 23/07/2108, after that it will revert to the regular price.


Bye for now,

  Crafting Quine Blog | Instagram @CraftingQuine

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