Double sided printing of beautiful planner inserts for 2017

EQUIPMENT:
Silhouette Cameo or Portrait
Colour printer
Quality copier paper for the weekly pages
Cardstock for the monthly overview pages.
A5 floral monthly planner pages by Carina Gardner 156703
A5 floral weekly pages by Carina Gardner 156706

Last year I re-discovered the joys of having a physical planner diary so in the last few days of December 2016 I decided to check out what inserts I could get from the Silhouette Design store. I found these gorgeous designs from Carina Gardner that are for twelve monthly overviews, plus a week on two pages.

As the outside of my loose leaf planner is about A5, I thought these would be the correct size, but as anyone with a planner will know, not all planners are created equal! Carina's pages are designed at 140mm x 210mm which some brands call an A5 or Large Personal planner. The size of my KikkiK planner, is designated as a Personal planner - note there is no "large" in the name! This means that the size of my pages are in fact only 171mm x 95mm which is not even the same ratio as Carina's designs, however resizing Carina's designs for my needs did not noticeably distort them, so here is what I did.

Monthly overview divider pages (card)
Open the design for the monthly planner pages and select it. Ungroup the design. You will find the cut lines are now free to move and the 12 printed designs are all on one sheet sized 71 x 74cm. As I was going to be printing on A4 card, I used the Knife tool to separate each of the printed designs so I could move them around individually.

If you need to resize the design for a Personal Planner, draw a rectangle 17.1 wide x 9.5cm high. This is the basic page shape. Then draw a small rounded rectangle for the tabs, measuring 3.3cm x 1.5cm. See the images below. Copy these shapes so you have 12 of each. Adjust the printed design so it is slightly bigger than the size of your planner page, place the smaller "tab" rectangle as shown below, at the correct place to cut out the name of the month and Merge the tab with the basic page.

Image 1

Don't forget to draw six small circles for the holes to be cut for the ring binder (see Image 2 below) and using one of Carina's cut outlines, you can place these at the correct distance in from the edge, and at the correct distance apart. If you  are unsure you have placed them correctly, cut out a page from cheap copier paper and check it in your planner before cutting out the card.

Do this for each month as the tab will need to be at a different part of the page each time.

Switch on Registration marks from the top menu, and I would suggest you switch Show Cut (page) border from the Design page Settings. You will find my basic page size fits just within these lines, which means you can print off two of the monthly designs per sheet of A4 card. Print the designs for January and February onto a sheet of card. Take the printed card, pop it on a Silhouette mat and feed it into your Silhouette machine. Check the blade is set at the correct depth for card. Check your computer electronic cutting settings within the software are set to Card, and send the job to be cut. If it has cut through correctly, remove the card from the machine and the mat, and fit them into your planner. Admire!

Weekly pages (thick copier paper) printed on both sides

As above, resize the weekly planner pages for a Personal planner, but in this case, you do not need tabs on the pages, which makes them simpler. However, they are more complicated, in that you will want to print each page on both sides! I always find this a bit of a challenge, remembering how to arrange them so that they print off correctly. I would strongly advise printing off a trial copy of one sheet on both sides, before sending all 52 weeks (sheets of paper) worth to your printer!

Image 2

How I do this, is to

1. Set up my design within the software with the two pages, comprising Monday - Sunday on my A4 sheet. See image 2.
2. Once you have them arranged on your design space, select both, and Group them together.
3. Open the Align window from the top bar, right hand side and click on the last option, which is Centre to page. I save this as Page_front. 
4. Then make a Save As copy called Page_back and remove the registration marks from this to help you distinguish between front and back. You don't have to do this, but it is a good habit.
5. Send Page_front to your printer  (image 3) and print ONE copy. Re-feed this page into your printer so that you can print the other side, and print the Page back. If you have arranged everything correctly both printings should lie perfectly on top of each other on each side of the page. Place the side with the Registration marks on your cutting mat and feed into the Cameo. Select Copier paper on the cut settings and adjust the blade on the machine accordingly. Cut out your first weekly page.
6. Once you have checked that everything is the right way round and cutting neatly, carry on with printing and cutting 27 copies of Page front. This allows for some unused days at the start and finish of the year as January 1st started on a Saturday in 2017. Once all the Front pages are printed, return them into your printer and print 27 copies of the back page on the other side.
7. Now all you have to do is cut all these sheets out on your Cameo! You could of course cut them out with a slicer and punch holes by hand, but I love to have everything perfectly aligned, and so cutting with my Silhouette is worth the time it takes for me.

Image 3

I hope this is clear, but if you are still confused, my fellow team member Nadine, also describes how to do a double sided print and cut here.

Further ideas: Stickers for the date number and the month.

The weekly pages do not have numbers or the month printed on them. These can be written in by hand, or make and print them to stick in place later. You will find several tutorials on our blog describing how to make your own stickers. You can see in the photo below that I printed out numbers to stick beside the days of the week and a named header for each month.

I have labelled dividers that came with my planner such as Notes, Blog, Nutrition, To Do etc.. You may also like to make stickers to use as markers along the top of pages which will help you find where you noted things down. I particularly like Susie Planner tabs by Felicity Jane.

Our Team Member Sara did a blog post about making paper clip markers which can be helpful as well as decorative.

The Design store has masses of sticker designs for using in your planner and I absolutely love them, so until you get the confidence to design your own stickers that is a good place to start. Welcome to my planner world, just make sure that you don't spend all your time making your planner beautiful, it is quite addictive!

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HoHoHo Word Art Background

Hey there Silhouette fans, Niki here with you today creating a word art background. I started off by choosing a file from the Silhouette Design Store 'HoHoHo' and positioned it onto my layout. I re-sized and angled it and popped it right up in the corner.

I then filled the page with it simply by copy & pasting, making sure the whole background was covered.

I then drew a square around the page using the 'draw a rectangle' tool

then ensured everything was selected, and went to the Object menu and selected Modify, then Crop which removed the square and everything outside it, leaving my hohohos perfectly within my background space.

I wanted a square though so I re-drew the square and then cut out my background in white card. I layered it onto red and added in all the little bits (the middles of the 'o' and the top bit from the loop on the 'h' manually (this took a bit of patience lol).

and here is the layout I made with the background:

You could use any word or phrase to create a background like this and you could also make the words smaller so they are more subtle but I wanted my hohohos to be the focal point of my layout so made them big and bold with a deep red behind them to really show them off. I love the end result - what word art background will you make?

Designs used:
HoHoHo

PRODUCTS USED:

Personalised Mugs using Permanent Vinyl

Hello, Karen with a quick post about some Christmas presents I made.  I really wanted to make some personalised mugs for my nieces and nephews and for Gracia's two best friends.  I knew that it could be done using permanent vinyl and thought I would give it a go.  I was thrilled with the results.

You will need
Mugs (mine are colour changing mugs from E-Bay)
Permanent Vinyl
Transfer Paper
Silhouette Cameo or Portrait.

STEP 1 - Designing the Mugs.

• To begin with I chose phrases that suited each person that the mugs were meant for.
• I measured my mugs, with a tape measure, and then knew that I had to make the designs 8ins wide and 4 ins tall.
• I added a name to each of the mug designs, for the male mugs I used Bauhaus 93   font for the male mugs - this is a font that I already had on my computer and not a Silhouette one.  For the female mugs I used  the font KB Sparkles.
• As I was using A4 sized vinyl sheets I was able to get three mugs per sheet.

• I cut the phrases and names and removed the excess vinyl. 

Step 2 - Applying the Vinyl

• I used transfer tape to remove one of the phrases from the sheet and with the handle of the mug on the left applied it to the mug. I used the scraper tool to really press the vinyl onto the mug.  I then laid the mug so that the handle was on the right and applied the appropriate name. 

I had great fun choosing appropriate phrases for each family member.

DESIGNS USED:



PRODUCTS USED:

Etch Copper with Edinburgh Etch Solution (Ferric Chloride)

Hi gang, Nadine here with another copper etching tutorial, this time using a solution called Edinburgh Etch, an alternative method to the salt-water electro etching which I shared last time.  This method is also safe and effective and again costs under £10 in materials.

Ferric chloride is a salt crystal which which has been used since the turn of the century as it gives and accurate and controlable bite.  It has benefits over other 'nasty' etching chemicals such as nitric acid as it is odourless, does not produce toxic fumes  and, though corrosive, is not absorbed through the skin.

Whilst you can etch with plain ferric chloride, Friedhard Kiekeben, artist and researcher at the Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop has invented a better version called Edinburgh Etch.  After lots of experimentation, he found that by simply adding citric acid, the acid naturally occuring in lemon juice, the etched sediment is dissolved as soon as it is produced, preventing clogging.  This simple addition makes the etch faster, cleaner and last longer.

What you need:

• Ferric chloride
• Citric acid powder
• Water
• Plastic or glass beaker
• Copper piece to be etched
• Silhouette Cameo or Curio
• Vinyl

This tutorial will make up 500ml of Edinburgh Etch solution, simply scale up or down depending on your needs.   Whilst this solution is safe to use, it is still a corrosive and can stain skin and clothes, so be careful, protect your work surfaces and wear rubber gloves.

Edinburgh Etch Recipe

• 1/5 Citric Acid Solution:
• 3 parts water to 1 part powder
• 4/5 Ferric Chloride 
• 40% strength - available premixed or in crystal form

Step One: Make Citric Acid Solution

Dissolve the citric acid powder in a ratio of 3 parts water to 1 part citric acid.  We're making 500ml of Edinburgh Etch, so  dissolve 30ml (2 tablespoons) of citric acide in 100ml of water.  Citric acid can be bought from chemists or shops that sell winemaking kits.  I got mine from Wilkos.

Step Two: Add to Ferric Chloride to Make Edinburgh Etch Solution

Measure 400ml of 40% strength ferric chloride and add your 100ml citric acid solution to it.  I bought my ferric chloride premixed from eBay, but it is also available from printmaking supppliers and electronic supply companies.

Step Three: Cut and Apply Vinyl

Prep your copper so it's free of grease and dirt - the easiest way is to buff with some fine wet and dry paper.   Cut your vinyl, weed the parts that will be etched, then transfer to the copper using transfer tape.  Remember to protect the back of your piece.

Step Four: Etch

I popped some double sided tape on the back of my pieces and attached a little section of foam to make the pieces float, face down.  Set your timer for 20 minutes - adjusing the time depending on the depth of etch you would like.

Once you are happy with the depth of etch, pop a little sodium carbonate (
soda crystals) on your piece to neautralise and prevent further etching.  I etched one piece with plain ferric chloride and one with Edinburgh Etch.  I found the latter etched better, and also surprised me by producing a beautiful rainbow effect when removed from the solution.  If you like this effect, it can be protected with Renaissance Wax or resin.  Finish as desired, I oxidised with platinol and then polished the bird to highlight.

Step FIVE: Reusing - Testing Freshness

Edinburgh Etch can remain active for several years and allows for a great many pieces to be etched without dimished performance.  You can tell if the solution needs replaced by dipping a strip of white paper into the liquid and checking the colour:

Edinburgh Etch Freshness Colour Chart. Courtesy of http://www.nontoxicprint.com/etchcopperandbrass.htm

Step SIX: Neutralising and Disposal

Neutralise with sodium carbonite, also known as soda crystals.  I bought a big bag from Wilkos for a pound, but I've read that bicarb and plaster of paris also works.  Once neutralised, as with salt-water etching, take it to your Local Authority waste disposal site.

For more information on Edinburgh Etch, check out the inventor's website nontoxicprint.

FINISHED PRODUCT

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