Make a 3D Lightbox using Carbon Fibre Vinyl

Hello, Janet from the Crafting Quine Blog here using the Silhouette Carbon Fibre Vinyl and saying farewell* with a 3D Lightbox design. This speciality vinyl is available in black with a pattern that gives the look and texture of carbon fibre in an easy to apply material. For this project I have applied the vinyl to cardstock which I then used to make the box. I also used it in a more conventional way to make the letters.

The lightbox design (#251632) is from the Silhouette Design Store. I adapted it to take three rows of letters, which allows for longer words and then cheated on the letters, putting the  words onto long strips. Far quicker and less fiddly to change out than individual letters. Finally I added a string of led fairy lights inside.

Design ID #251832 in Studio and SVG format

DESIGNS USED:
Lightbox by Nilmara Quintella (#251632)
LW Perfect Type font by Lori Whitlock (#55159)


MATERIALS USED:
Black & White Cardstock
Shiny/Mirror Card, Paper or Vinyl
Strong Tack Transfer Tape
Liquid Craft Adhesive
Strong-Tack Tape Adhesive
Vinyl Scraps for Emojis
Silhouette Premium Carbon Fibre Vinyl
Silhouette Vellum
Set of Battery-Powered LED Lights

You'll find instructions for assembling the box on the designer's website and there is a link from the file's description in the Silhouette store. I'll just highlight the things I did differently.

HINT: The designer's instructions are in Brazilian, for English instructions just copy the link into a Google search and you get the option to translate the page. 

Preparing & Cutting Carbon Fibre Cardstock
Cut a piece of vinyl slightly larger than the box base and smooth it onto a piece of black cardstock. Cut the piece, increasing the blade depth and force as necessary, to cut all the way through. Use a bone folder to make crisp fold lines.

Adding Reflective Panels
Use the panel pieces cut from mirror card to line the reverse of the box if you have it. I didn't, so I used some sticky-backed reflective paper that I had on hand. In this photo I've left the backing on at the ends of the long strips. When assembled these can be removed so the reflective paper hides the  box tabs on the inside also giving a bigger reflective surface.

Add Extra Supports
The translucent part of the lightbox is effectively an adapted box lid. In order to add an extra line of text it is necessary to cut an extra centre support bar. I'd also recommend cutting extras of all of the bars in case they don't all fold straight. It is also necessary to add one extra aperture and reduce the height of the existing apertures in the lid. Check they are all of the same height, evenly aligned, and are equally spaced using the alignment and spacing tools in tools in the transform panel.

Applying Vellum
Vellum is applied to the reverse of the lid. I recommend a strong adhesive tape so that no excess glue can get onto the vellum.

Adding Lights
Here are the assembled top and base parts of the box with the fairy lights inside.

Arrange the lights around the edges of the inside, adhering them to the box sides using adhesive tape. For an even neater effect, adhere the battery pack in the box (with double-sided tape) and cut a small slit and a rectangle out of the side so that the controller can be switched on and off with the lid in place (then no-one has to see the light 'spaghetti').

Text Cheat
Instead of cutting individual letters and mounting them on small acetate rectangles, cut strips of acetate and mount the words in carbon fibre vinyl directly to the strip. This isn't quite so versatile, but you can just cut more strips and vinyl when you need new words. So much quicker and less fiddly to change them out. With this method you can choose just about any font you want. I picked LW Perfect Type as its quick to weed and easy to read, but any cuttable font will do, even script fonts work (don't forget to weld any overlapped letters together before cutting though).

HINT: For ease of application, cut your letters in weeding boxes of the same size as the acetate strips. Place your acetate strip on a card strip cut to the same size so that is easier to see. Align your transfer tape with the top of the weeding box, lift the word, then align the top of the transfer tape with the top of the strip and burnish it onto the strip. 

Layered Emojis
These crying emojis were made using layered vinyl. Using transfer tape, pick up the blue 'tears' first, then the yellow faces next, and finally the black circles (with weeding box the same height as one of the acetate strips as for the words). Then they are easy to align onto an acetate strip in the same way as the letters.

You may have realised, if you've been following the Silhouette UK Blog for a while, that I have a passion for adding lights to my projects. If you have a weakness for lights too, you might like to check out these earlier projects.

Marquee Lights

Big Ben Lantern

Light up Cards

Vellum & Foil Lanterns

Acetate Lantern

*Saying Farewell
This is the last regular post I'll be doing with the Silhouette UK Blog Design Team. I've been on the team since it started in 2016 and I'm away to do a real world job which won't allow me as much crafting time. I may be back with a special post now and again. Meantime you can catch up with my crafty creations (Silhouette and otherwise) at the Crafting Quine Blog.



Bye for now,

  Crafting Quine Blog | @CraftingQuine

DESIGNS USED:


PRODUCTS USED:

Sticker Designs - Adapt and Arrange - Part 2

Hello, Janet from Crafting Quine Blog here again with more sticker hints. Last week we looked at some easy ways to use Print & Cut  designs using the Little Bird Stickers by MiniLou (#284076).  That post includes a general guide to Print & Cut too, so do check it out if you didn't read it last week.

This week I'm going to do more even more with this sticker set on Silhouette Printable Sticker Sheets. The ideas can also be used with any of the Silhouette range of printable sticker and foil sheets, and can be used with other brands, although the size of the sheets my be different. Some of the techniques require the Designer edition of the Silhouette Studio software, but I'll show you a work around if you only have the basic edition - same result, but just takes a little longer.

1. Mirror the Images
This one is so easy, it really should have been included in last week's post. Once you have your stickers in an arrangement you like, just select them, and from the menu brought up by a right mouse click select 'flip horizontally'. Alternatively, you can open the Replicate panel and select the 'Mirror to the right' button. Just one move and you have doubled the variations.

2. Selectively Cut Apart
It is easy to make a full sheet of stickers by using your knife or eraser tools. If you recall the original sheet had thirteen little birds, and the manipulated sheet shown below has nineteen.

You can cut the designs apart using the Knife Tool. In the designer edition you can draw a continuous Polygonal (jagged) line.

Choose the options shown - Solid shape, Poly cut, untick Auto Apply

Draw your line through the bird designs, using a left mouse click where you need to change direction.

Then click on Apply, and you are able to more the two groups of birds apart.

Select the outlines, right mouse click and click ungroup and all the outlines are separated.

I found it easier to move the designs around by first making two groups of outlines, the top set, and then the others and then to align and group them with the matching set of bird images.

The white margin can be reduced by dragging it tighter to the bird image, or by making an internal offset. Turn off the grouping first. Tracing is an alternative too, although I found that some coloured parts were too difficult to pick up using the Trace function.

It is also possible to split the designs using the eraser tool, although more time consuming. Make a duplicate set for insurance before you start. The Undo function is useful if you make a mistake along the way.


3. Select Individual Images
It is possible to separate every bird image using one of the above methods, but it would be very time consuming. The quickest way to divide up the images is to select both layers and to click Crop in the Modify panel. The boxes around each bird indicate that each bird image can now be used independently.

You can confirm that each has its own cut line by clicking on the Send tab, and turning on the cut lines.

The designs can then be arranged independently as you wish. They can even be made into stickers of a different shape (note they still have a white margin around them).

4. Make Matching Stickers
It is easy to design matching functional stickers using colours taken from the bird designs using the Colour Picking technique. Making a colour swatch is optional. You can read how do it here.

These custom sticker designs are easy to make by using the drawing tools to layer rectangles and lines, then adding individual bird images. The cut line from the bird image needs to be removed or set to 'no cut' to Print & Cut these successfully.

I hope you've seen how versatile these sticker designs can be. It's worth taking the time to experiment with them.

Here is the link the earlier post with the Print & Cut Guide and more easy tips with sticker designs - just click on the picture below.


Let us know how you get on.


Bye for now,

  Crafting Quine Blog | @CraftingQuine

DESIGNS USED:

PRODUCTS USED:

Mini Gold Foil Tropical Leaf Canvas Art

Hello, Janet here with a quick and easy contemporary home decor project featuring a set of mini painted canvases and the Silhouette Printable Gold Foil. The printable foil comes in three colours: silver, gold and rose gold, in a pack of eight, 8.5″ x 11″ sheets. These gorgeous sheets are self adhesive and inkjet-printable.

To decorate the mini canvases, I used some of the tropical leaf shapes by Amy Robison (#83624, #83618) from the Silhouette Design Store.


Materials Required
Silhouette Printable Gold Foil Sticker Paper
Silhouette Cameo, or Portrait
4-pack of Mini Canvases (12.5cm x 12.5cm, 5" x 5")
Chalk Paint
Water-based Sealant
Foam Brush


STEP 1: Prepare the Canvases

Paint each canvas with chalk paint, allowing the paint to dry between coats. Apply a thin coat of sealant with a foam brush. This dries very quickly and ensures a good adhesion between the foil sheets and the chalk paint, which can otherwise have a powdery surface.

STEP 2: Prepare the Files

Draw boxes equivalent to the size of the canvases in the software using the rectangle drawing tool. Open the leaf files, select the leaves and resize them to fit the boxes.

Remove the boxes and change the Page Setup size to US Letter.
Note: I added an extra leaf in case that complex leaf shape proved too intricate to cut from the foil. I needn't have bothered though, as the foil cut beautifully.
Arrange the leaves to fit within the letter-sized sheet.

(Optional) To make the arranging process quicker, use the Nesting Tool (Silhouette Studio Designer Edition and above). Increase the padding (space between the shapes) and the rotations as shown, ensuring that you are using the cut area as the boundary.
Note: The rotations value can be at maximum for Printable Foil as there is no obvious surface texture to this media. If I were cutting from linen textured card, for example, I might have rotations set at '0', '2' or '4', depending on the importance of matching the surface pattern on the pieces. 
Read more about the nesting feature here.

STEP 3: Cut the Media

Feed the media on a cutting mat into your Silhouette. Click on the send tab and select the 'Foil - Printable' media type. Adjust the settings until a test cut cuts through the foil and not the backing, achieving a 'kiss cut'. I was able to reduce the Force by two, but otherwise the defaults worked fine for me.

STEP 4: Apply the Foil

Remove any tiny waste pieces. I do this by bending the cut foil sheet and lifting off each piece by a corner. Larger waste pieces can be left on the sheet. Carefully peel away one leaf shape at a time and smooth it onto a prepared canvas (no need to use transfer tape for images of this size, just carefully hold it in your fingers).

That's it - the canvases are complete and ready to hang on your wall. I love how they turned out. In real life they look so effective for such a quick project. I'm sure you can think of lots of other projects where these foil sheets would look great too. Do share them on the Silhouette UK Facebook Page.

Bye for now,

  Crafting Quine Blog | Instagram @CraftingQuine

DESIGNS USED:


PRODUCTS USED: