Faux Pearlised metal bear cushion

Hello, it's Verity here from Pretty Little Button. This week the design team is using reflective heat transfer vinyl. This vinyl is great to use on clothing to increase your visibility in low light conditions. However, I love the look of it normally. It has a pearlized look to it as though it is burnished metal and thought it would look great as a modern style cushion. Even when it does catch the light, it still looks really amazing and such an interesting cushion and currently takes pride and place on my craft room chair!

Faux Pearlised metal bear cushion process: 

Insert your design into your design space, for this design see the end of the post of the design ID.

Now the reflective HTV comes in rolls of 9"wide by 12" and you can cut this without your Silhouette mat.  To ensure your position is correct, open up the page set up window and adjust the page size using the width and height settings. 

Next, open up the transform window. In there, select the rotate tab.

You can either use the green button on the design to rotate the design freely, or you can use some of the pre-programmed rotate options with the rotate tab. This allows you quick and straight rotation to align with your media. 

If you still want to work with your design, but the orientation of it is a bit confusing, you can orientate the viewpoint of your design space to continue working with your design. In the page setup window, select the best suit option in the 'Rotate view' section.

Lastly, when you are ready to send, remember you are working with HTV. The software comes up with a friendly reminder asking whether you wish to mirror. If you have already flipped your design prior to this, press send-ad. As I hadn't flipped my design, I selected send mirrored. Remember, if you select this option it will mirror your design, but it will the flip design to cut from the opposite side of the mat, so you need to be aware of where it will cut in relation to where your media will be in the machine.

Once cut, weed all the excess vinyl to leave the bears on the backing sheet. I used a hot iron on cotton setting to heat set the vinyl. I didn't end up using the writing in the end as I loved it just with the bears. 

Faux Pearlised metal bear cushion photos:

If this has inspired you to try this out, please post below. I would love to see it!

Until next time,

Verity




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MAMA BEAR by Tommy and Tilly Paper Design, Design ID #289771

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Brewing Mischief Baby Grow

Hi everyone. It's Verity here from Pretty Little Button bringing you another project. Today's project features the glow in the dark heat transfer vinyl.  When I was browsing the Silhouette store for Halloween designs, I saw this design and instantly knew I wanted to make it into a baby grow. I thought it was such a fun little design that would be funny for a little baby grow as the meaning could mean an array of things! Whatsmore, as it was Halloween related I also used glow in the dark heat transfer vinyl, allowing your baby to join in the fun! Though can't guarantee the baby will sleep with the glow, so perhaps take it off before nap time!

Brewing Mischief Baby Grow details: 

Before I design my piece in the design space, I like to work out how big the decal will be on my item of clothing. I use a piece of a scrap piece of paper cut to a square and position this over the baby grow. I can then look to see if it is too big or too small for the piece of clothing. This piece of paper was cut to 5 inches, which was large enough for the baby grow. I also tried 4 inches which for me was a little on the small side. 

In the end, I ended up creating the design to be around 4.5 inches.

I loaded the Brewing Mischief design into my design space and right clicked to flip horizontally. I do this before the send panel as I wanted to position the design on my mat over a particular area. The top left-hand corner of my mat is starting to lose its stick. So it can slip a little when cutting in that area.

In order to cut out in another area of the mat, I set the page size in the page setup panel to the width of the media. This glow in the dark heat transfer vinyl is 9 inches wide. Now the boundaries of the media are visible, I can position the design over the media and mat in an area where it is more stick for the mat, but also isn't beyond the boundaries of my media. 

I don't have a heat press as I don't do enough HTV to warrant spending the money on one. I instead use an iron. However, I find the set up below works the best for me with an iron. I place a folded up towel and place this on the floor. The item of clothing is placed on top of this, and then I positioned the HTV decal over this. Lastly, I add a sheet of baking paper over the top to prevent and scorching.

I prefer ironing this on the floor as opposed to an ironing board, and this solid surface of the floor allows me to get good pressure when applying the heat. My ironing board isn't the sturdiest and therefore opted for the floor!

I wanted to show you this picture as it was fun; as I was heat setting the vinyl, it kept glowing briefly as I removed the iron. Obviously, it glows in the darkness of the iron over the top, and you get brief glimpses of it before it fades when you removed the iron. 

Brewing Mischief Baby Grow photos:

If this has inspired you to try this out, please post below. I would love to see it!

Until next time,

Verity




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DESIGNS USED:

Brewing mischief Halloween phrase, by Sarah Bailey Design ID #274820

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Bullet journal pencil case HTV Decal

Hi everyone. It's Verity here from Pretty Little Button bringing you another project. This week the design team has been asked to use Heat Transfer Vinyl in a project. I decided this was a perfect time to decorate a burlap zipped pouch I had been given as an Xmas present and wanted to use this to store pencils in for my bullet journal. Now I have used HTV before, however, not the Silhouette brand, nor have I layered before. So this project had a few new experiences for me. I did find that the Matt white HTV to feel thinner than previous brands, however, I found it adhered very quickly with an iron, much better than previous brands I had used. Another new experience for me was Glitter HTV. When I first cut it, I didn't think it had cut, but when held at an angle in the light I could see it had. One thing to note, I found it more bothersome to weed than the matte white but it still gave a good end result. So read on to pick up any tips and pointers on my first try at layering HTV.

Bullet journal pencil case HTV Decal details:

To start off, draw a shape the same size as the area you wish to add your HTV too. Mine was a pencil case, so a fairly straightforward shape. To adjust the measurements accurately, you can use the aspect ratio button on the top bar (looks like a double ended diagonal arrow). To see this icon, you must have you shape selected.

Next, place your design inside the shape and adjust the size according. I wanted to layer a shadow outline of vinyl to my design, so I added an offset as seen below with the offset panel. This is the 'Double star' icon on the right-hand panel. You can adjust the size of your offset by changing the distance. When happy, click apply. 

Separate your two designs, the main text and the offset from one another and group individually. Now you can add a little box around your design as this may make it easier to weed, but you don't need it. At this point, you can also discard the blank shape you used at the beginning. From an old habbit before the feature was added to the programme, I always flip my design horizontally at this point. Remeber with HTV you need to mirror/ flip your design horizontally, as when the machine cuts, it will cut into the back of the design. This back will the be place down on to your item to HTV and your design will appear the correct way round. 

However, if you forget or don't mirror at this point, the programme will now remind you to mirror when your have HTV set as your material to cut . As you can see below when I press the send button, it asks 'Have you mirrored?'. I selected 'send as-is' as I have already flipped my design, but if you have press 'send mirrored' and it will cut it mirrored for you.

My tips on ironing with HTV:

I don't have a lovely heat press for HTV, I don't do enough to warrant buying such a machine, so I still use an Iron and it works well for me. However, I have learnt a few things to improve my press with an iron. I turn my iron on full heat and allow this to warm up for quite a few minutes before I even contemplating it. I use a hard surface to iron on, by ironing board has quite a bit of giving in it when you press down on it. Not ideal for pressing, as you want to press on a very solid surface for a good press. So I find a towel folded over several times on top of my table works very well.

I also like to press with a piece of baking parchment over the top. This means I won't melt the plastic backing onto my iron or project. When I can see the HTV has started to adhere, I peel the back off and then cover with the paper again to continue my heat press until I can see the grain of the fabric showing through the HTV. When I see this I know I have a good seal and the HTV has adhered.

As I was wanting to layer my items, it was important not to overheat and press the first layer - the white matte HTV. I pressed this just enough to see a little of the grain showing - only ever so slight. This was enough for me to remove the plastic backing from the HTV. Then before pressing the white again, I layered the gold glitter HTV over the top and pressed this like normal.

I hope this saying will remind me to continue to have a passion and my bullet journal is where the passion will have a purpose....if I make sure I use it!

 If this has inspired you to try this out, please post below. I would love to see it!

Until next time,

Verity







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DESIGNS USED:

Purpose fuels passion by Sarah Hurley -Design ID #249316

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Applying Heat Transfer Vinyl to Cardstock - Easy Floral Notelets

Hello,  Janet here again with a cardmaking project using Silhouette Heat Transfer Material and a selection of Decorative Floral Backgrounds from the Silhouette Design Store by Alaa' K. I've made a set of floral notelets, or notecards, knowing that heat transfer vinyl will cut these detailed designs well; small enough to fit regular 127 mm (5-inch) square envelopes.  There are ten designs in this style and I picked my four favourites, using four different colours of textured cardstock.

If you haven't used heat transfer on cardstock I do urge you to try it. Why, you ask? Well, it is possible to cut more detailed designs than from cardstock, it is easier to weed than regular vinyl (the vinyl itself is not sticky), it's easy to get positioning spot on, and there is no glue to worry about.


Materials Used
Heavy-weight White Cardstock
Medium-weight Coloured Textured Cardstock
Silhouette Smooth Heat Transfer Material in white
Heat Press or Iron
Strong Liquid Adhesive
127 mm/ 5" Square Envelopes
Silhouette Cameo


How to Make the Card Panels

1. Draw a circle for the card front sized at 122 mm (4.8-inches).

2. Open the designs in one window in Silhouette Studio.

3. Resize the designs to 110 mm (4.33-inches) - two will fit side-by-side on the 9-inch wide vinyl.

4. Cut circles from the coloured cardstocks.

5. Place the heat transfer material shiny side down to the mat. Cut out decorative panels, remembering to flip the design if you have added wording to your designs. I found the default smooth vinyl setting was perfect with the AutoBlade, but I advise that you carry out a test cut first.

6. Remove (weed) the excess pieces from the heat transfer and cut the designs apart.

7. Align the designs onto the circles and adhere them together by activating the adhesive on the heat transfer by pressing each pair with a heat press or iron. (To prevent the design curling up, I found it handy to turn cardstock and vinyl pairs over while waiting to press them).

Heat Press: Use a cool-ish setting. I used heat setting 6 on my Hobby Jack heat press (which I believe is around 120ºC, so a good bit cooler than you'd use for garments). Press initially for 8 seconds, and then re-press for a few more seconds if it hasn't stuck when you check by carefully lifting a corner. Ensure you use a protective layer (non-stick paper or silicon sheet) between the HTV and the hot platen. For ease I use a silicon sheet fixed to the upper platen of my press.
Iron (non-steam setting): You can use an iron (with steam turned off) with a similar temperature, but if you move the iron around, the design may shift too.
When it has adhered all over, carefully pull away the whole backing sheet and press again for just a few seconds.

Card Base

1. Take one of the coloured circles, and 'replicate' it below, overlapping the two circles as shown below.

2. Select both, and weld them together.

3. Using the knife tool, remove a slice from one of the circles. This will be on the rear of the card base and ensures that it will stand without rolling to one side.

4. Add a fold line along the card centre.

5. Duplicate and cut the card bases. Fold along the crease line.

6. Adhere the front panels to the card bases using liquid adhesive.

These small cards will be useful for many occasions and a set of them would make a great gift. Applying heat transfer to cardstock is quick and easy, I hope you'll try it out.


Bye for now,

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