Chalkboard Vinyl Artist of the Week Wall Art

Hello! Bev here with a tutorial for Chalkboard Vinyl.  I came up with a reusable artist board.  I love the way it has turned out and I have a very happy little lady in the house.

What you will need:

• Silhouette Cameo/Portrait
• Chalkboard Vinyl

Step One

Open a new page in your Silhouette program.  There are no registration marks or print borders needed so you can make this project as large as your cut area will allow.

 Draw a box using the tools on the lefthand side of the screen.  I chose to use the box with rounded corners as I like the effect it gives once cut.  Add a text box and type in what you would like it to say.  I used Artist of the Week as I would like to change out the pictures and I can use it for my sons artwork too.

Choose a font you like (one with quite thick lines is good, especially when it comes to lifting the project from the backing paper)

Step Two

The next step is to use the Weld feature to weld the two objects together to make one object.  Line up the text on top of the box, and slightly overlap the bottom of the text with the top of the box.

Once you have the two lined up, select the modify button along the top of the program.  Highlight the two objects and select Weld.  It can take a try or two to get it right, but easily fixed if you do not manage to weld it correctly first time.  Should you need to, press the control and z button together on your keypad and that will undo the last action.  You can also click the back arrow at the top of the screen.  Once welded it will look like this

You can see that the words have been welded into the box and are now one piece.

Step Three

Load your chalkboard vinyl onto your cutting mat and load into the Silhouette machine.  There is no specific cut setting for chalkbaord vinyl so I selected the regular vinyl setting and cut first wth that suggested setting.  Unfortunately it did not cut through sufficiently so I made some adjestments.  I found that by changing my blade setting to 3, my speed to 8 and thickness to 9 it worked much better.  I also selected a double cut just as a back up.  Always check with a test cut first and adjust your machine settings accordingly.

Step Four

You will need to weed the design next and this is very easy with the silhouette hook.  It really starts to take shape after the weeding is complete

Step Five

Remove the backing paper carefully and slowly so not to accidentally tear any of the lettering.  And the last part is to place it in the area you wish for it to live.  You can use chalk to write the name of the artist and I used some pretty washi tape to secure the picture in place.  Blutack would also be an option along with a peg glued on to the vinyl.

I am really pleased with the end result and my vinyl now has pride of place on the kitchen wall.  I have really enjoyed sharing with you and can't wait to see what you create!

DESIGNS USED:

LW Perfect Type font

PRODUCTS USED:

Pinwheel Penny Slider Spinner Card

Immediately I saw a short video on line of these cards in action, I knew I had to make one. Be warned, they are quite addictive to play with! If you Google "penny spinner card" you will see they come in various shapes, but I really liked the pinwheel as it evoked happy, childhood memories. I have a friend who loves taking part in vintage car rallies, so the sentiment seemed perfect for her. The spinner card file I used is by Lori Whitlock. Instead of the pinwheel it could also look really good with a child doing a cartwheel such as using the file A hug and a heart by Samantha Walker #37787.

EQUIPMENT:
Silhouette Cameo
2 pennies or similar small coins
Cardstock
Adhesive tape
Small brad
Glitter
Double sided adhesive sheet
Sticky dimensional pads
Pinwheel Penny Slider card by Lori Whitlock #61616
American Crafts Central Park Flower pattern #20862

STEPS:
1. Open the file and ungroup the shapes. Move the pinwheel aside, and then re-group the horizontal cut with its surround, the second piece like this, and then the card shape needs grouped with its dotted fold.
2. I cut the background card on my first piece of white card stock.
3. For the larger, slotted layer and the pinwheel shape I used a background fill (Central Park flower pattern). I printed some cardstock with these and with registration marks enabled.
4. For the top slotted layer I used plain cardstock and simply cut the shape out. If you want to print a sentiment on it, enable the registration marks, type your sentiment and print a sheet from your printer. before putting it on the Silhouette mat and sending for cutting. Once done, stick the two layers with the slotted hole together, so that the holes align.
5. I wanted to introduce a bit of sparkle, so I used the double sided adhesive sheet and cut another pinwheel shape.

I peeled off the backing and carefully applied this to the white, unpatterned back of my pinwheel. I then peeled off the other protective backing. With adhesive side up, I liberally sprinkled on some glitter powder, and then reversed the shape, pressing it down into the mound of glitter to get even more to adhere. Fold in the pinwheel wings, rolling them over a pen, pencil or knitting needle, so that the tiny holes for the brad are on top of one another in the centre. Thread a brad through all four layers and splay out the back of the brad to fix.

CONSTRUCTION:
6. I roughly cut a foam sticky pad into a rounded shape and stuck it onto a coin. The other side of the coin is stuck with another sticky pad onto the pinwheel. This is then introduced through the front of the double slotted layers, and the second penny can be stuck from the back of the card. Make sure it all slides freely, and rotates, by rocking it back and forth.

7. Pop more sticky pads on the back of the double slotted layers, making sure they do not impede the movement of the penny slider.
8. Fold over the main piece of card and attach the slider layers. If you didn't print or stamp on a sentiment, you can stick one to th front, but you will need to make sure it is out of the way of the travelling pinwheel. Play with the pinwheel as it will gradually move better and better as the sticky foam pad is rounded off. Well, that's my excuse!

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How to add Easy Faux Stitching to HTV

A few years back I made 150 metres of bunting for my friend Linh's wedding.  It was a mammoth task, but looked stunning on the day.  The bunting is now with various of Linh and my friends and families ushering birthdays and brightening bedrooms.

For my niece Elle's birthday, I decided that it would be nice to customise some of this bunting with her name and of course some owls, her favourite animal.  As the bunting is very patterned and colourful, I decided to keep the lettering white, and used contrasting colours for the designs at either end. The lettering needed to be simple and bold to be easily readible, but I thought that it was missing a little something, so decided to add faux-stitching.

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to add this simple and effective technique to your shapes.

What you’ll need:

• Silhouette CAMEO
• Heat Transfer Vinyl (I used flocked)
• Handmade or shop-bought bunting

STEP ONE: Create Lettering

I like to mock up the item I am applying my HTV to, as this lets me size my design correctly.
So I created a triangle 20cm wide and 22cm long to match the size of my bunting pennants

Using the triangle as a guide, I choose the basic and universally free font Tahoma, set to Bold and 300pt.
This will be the stitching line.

STEP TWO: Offset Lettering

Offset the stitching line by 0.3cm to create the outline cut shape.

 

STEP THREE: Change Line Style and Thickness

In the line sytle menu, there are some variations of dashed lines. You may have used these line options to create perferated fold lines for cards. This is what we'll use for the faux-stitching. I opted for the 3rd line in the dropdown menu and set the line thickness to 3.1pt.

STEP FOUR: *Crucial Step* Use Cut Edge Setting

This step the key to making the stitches cut as little losenge shapes and not merely slits. In the Cut Settings menu, select 'Cut Edge' rather than the standard 'Cut' option. Most of the time our lines are 0pt, so both settings work the same. When the line is set to be thicker they operate dfferently - see below which highlights how the two settings differ:

STEP FIVE: Don't forget to mirror your HTV

I've forgotten to do this so many times, normally when I'm in a rush to complete my project, cue sweary words!

The Finished Product

 

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Amy Tangerine, Print and Cut Scrapbook Page

Niki back with you again today and as you have probably figured out by now I'm a pretty avid scrapbooker :) 

One of my favourite designers of scrapbook products is Amy Tangerine, I love every collection that she brings out and buy in quite a bit of each one!  I really love that some of her designs are also available in the Silhouette Design Store - I think this is an awesome perk of the Design Store.

I downloaded a few different Print and Cut files by Amy Tangerine and re-sized and arranged onto my page so they sat within the Registration Marks. I then simply printed the page, then loaded it into the Silhouette which read the registration marks and cut out the designs - hey presto, a load of Amy Tangerine embellishments ready to go on a layout without the expensive price tag of pre-made embellishments!

I used a piece of white cardstock for my background, and used some Amy Tangerine papers to compliment the Print and Cut files. I also a small amount of blue ink to my white background so that it wasn't quite so white. I finished off by adding a few small embellishments and stickers.

 Search for your favourite designers in the Design Store and give this a try. Happy scrapping xx

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