Silhouette Studio

2017 Christmas Card

/ Sarah Collins / 1 Comment

It is the Christmas Season!  All the presents are wrapped and all the cards have mailed; it is time that I share with you my Christmas Card of 2017.

I usually start thinking about my Christmas Cards around July.  If I wait until Thanksgiving, I sure that disasters will strike and I would be force into buying Christmas cards from the store.  This year the ideal was a Snow Globe Christmas card.  I researched the ideal and knew it was possible.

But, I didn’t really want to put a piece of plastic wrap or it’s equivalent on the card.  And, than I found Jullibean Soup’s Large Circles by Hampton Art.  It was a quick Click and Order from Amazon.  Once the circles came in, I started to work on the card.

I thought about designing a village scene to put inside the snow globe, but I wanted a little deep.  Then it occurred to me; I have polymer clay, I have cutters for snowman and trees.  The card was coming together.

The snowman, trees, and snow were made with Sculpey Polymer Clay using a setting of 3 in the pasta machine and cut with “cookie” cutters, bake and covered with sparkle varnish.  (Which was the first mistake.)  However, I need to draw the face and buttons, and color the hats on the snowman.  I got out may Sharpie pens and colored the hats.  They looked awful.  I should not have varnished the snowmen first.  What was I going to do, paint all the snowmen?  Nooooo!  I had just recent purchase a set of Chameleon Pens, which worked with beautiful results.  It even covered where I used a Sharpie.

20171102_15362220171102_15362920171102_153709

Since the Snowman were coming together, I could now design the inside of the card.  This was done using Corel Draw.  I probably spend too much time making snowflakes, but I was having so much fun.  I hope the shading on the snowman gives it some dimension.

2017 Card Snowman

At Office Depot, I found dual color cardstock.  It was light blue on one side and white on the other side.  This was perfect for my card.  It would give me the blue sky I wanted behind the snowman scene on the front and white on the inside.  I found the snowflake paper at Hobby Lobby.  I found some nice light blue glitter paper at JoAnn’s and had the silver paper left over from last year.

The Jullibean Soup circle comes with adhesive around the circle, so it was not necessary to stick it through the first layer of paper and glue everything down.  I used Silhouette Studio to design the silver snow globe and the cut for the top paper layer.   Everything was cut using my Silhouette Curio.   I was really dreading gluing it all together.

More research.  I found this wonderful blog that talked about ways to glue paper together.  Did you know you can put cheap plastic wrap between two piece of paper and use a hot iron to fix them together.  I didn’t use plastic wrap.  The blog also talk about Xyron Creative Station for sticking paper together.  This is the best machine I have bought all year.  It did exactly what I expected.  It basically creates stickers when you roll your paper through the machine.  Afterwards, you just peel it off and stick it where you want it.  It even handled the delicate “Merry Christmas”.

To assemble the card:

First step: print the inside of the card on cardstock on the correct side of the paper and cut everything.  Run the snowflake paper, the silver snow globe, and the Merry Christmas through the Xyron Creative Station.

Second step: stick the snowflake paper to the correct side of the card.20171102_153614

Third step:  Use glue dots to fix the snowman, trees, and snow to the card.  Top with snow.  (Second mistake.)  After sitting in a box for several weeks, the trees and snowman started to come loose.  The problem was I did not use permanent glue dots for those items.  I had to gently open up at least half of the cards and redo the inside.  I am glad I switched glue dots during the assembly.

20171102_15391620171102_153942

Fourth step:  Place plastic circle on tope of snowman and snow.

20171102_154018

Fifth step:  Place silver globe around circle and add Merry Christmas.

20171102_154833

We have a finished card.  Well, almost.  It needed something else.  I used glitter glue to around the border to give it more sparkle.

20171215_134056

I put the card in an envelope that I stamped with snowflakes.  Both, envelope and card was mail in a bubble mailer.  Any thicker and the card could not be sent First Class mail.

Christmas Card 2016

/ Sarah Collins / Leave a comment

Since I was having so much trouble printing my 3D Christmas Tree card.  I created another card to send out with the card and to the others on my list.  It was designed with Silhouette Studio and cut out using the Silhouette Curio.

5051647661

I used plain cardstock, but the background was lacking.  To spruce up the background I used Corel Draw to create the background for both the card.

5051647751

My niece was excited to be “and Samantha” on the Christmas Card.  She never has been an “and Samantha” before.

Thanks to my sister, she took these picture and display the tree and the card as I imagined.

5051648951

Silhoutte Curio – My First Card Atempt

/ Sarah Collins / 1 Comment

I would like to say the failure of this card resides in total, utter, and shear laziness.  My laziness.  I should have taken more time with the card.  But, this is what I learned in making of this card.

DSCN6357

The background of the card was done in Corel Draw.  It is just a rectangle with a fill image I found searching for “cupcake.”  It was printed on photo paper.  Everything else done with Silhouette Studio and the Curio Cutting Machine.

The “Happy Birthday” part was designed in the Silhouette Studio.  I was able to place the text in the design, then I drew a copy of rectangles.  I used the Curio to cut the rectangles from cardstock and the Curio Sketch pens to write-out “Happy Birthday!”  I do like the sketch pens and I am impressed with their colors.

What I should have done for the “Happy Birthday” banner was to either have the Curio cut each letter or created a different type of banner.  Maybe one that outlined the “Happy Birthday!”  Why didn’t I?  At that time, I didn’t want to have to glue each letter onto the card.

The cupcake turned out nice.  However, this was an image I got from Silhouette for free.  It should had some sparkles.

The inside part.  Again laziness.

DSCN6359

The text was another image from Silhouette.  I failed in putting the image on paper and creating the border.  I probably could have done a better job in cutting out the text by hand.  The text should have been printed directly on the card using the sketch pens.  And, if I would have added a few cupcakes to the inside of the card it would have been a nice touch.

After I glued everything onto the card, the card warped.  The card is now in the garbage can where it belongs.  Don’t use photo paper for the base of card. I am now working on another card.  No laziness allowed.

Silhouette Studio – The First Design

/ Sarah Collins / 1 Comment

In the last two posts, I talked about setting up the Silhouette Curio and installing the Silhouette Studio software.  Click here to read those posts.  This post covers the my first design.

This is my first design attempt.  Nothing fancy.

My First Studio Design

My First Studio Design

To start a new design in Silhouette Studio double-click on the icon and click Design.   The design window opens with a clean working area.

I clicked the Text text icon icon to begin to place text in the design area.  On the right-side of the screen, a Text Style menu appeared.  The menu let me define my text attributes before or after I put the text in the design area.  Scrolling through the fonts, I noticed that it allows me to use any font that is saved on my computer.  Yay!  No, limits there.

I noticed the little circle fit to path to the bottom right of my text.  Looking through the manual, I discovered this allows you to fit the text to a path.  I drew a couple of wavy lines on the screen using the curve curve tool.  I doubled clicked on the first line of text, to select it, and dragged the text to the first wavy line and than I repeated the process with the second line of text.  Easy enough, my text was now wavy.

Selecting the text that was fit to path, I was no longer able to rotate it or change it size by dragging a corner.  I was able to adjust the rotation Rotate by selecting it’s line.  There was also a slide bar that allowed me to change the text position on the line.

If I am doing a birthday theme design, some balloons are needed.  I knew the oval oval would not work for me because balloons are bigger on the top than the bottom.  I selected the curve curve tool to draw my balloon.  I put multiple points around the balloon to get the general shape I wanted.  The bottom point, where the balloon ties, is still too round.  I clicked the Edit Points Edit Points

Just for fun I drew a few more balloons.  Balloons usually have a shiny spot on them that is reflecting the light.  I use the rectangle rectangle tool to draw this area on a couple of balloons.  It didn’t look quite right, so I selected the rounded rectangle rounded rectangle tool to draw the shiny spot on the other balloons.

If I move the balloons around the canvas, I wanted the balloon and shiny area to move together.  I dragged my curser over both objects and selected the grouping grouping icon to keep them together.  To separate items after they are group, select the Ungroup icon next to the Group icon.

A border for my birthday theme design would be nice.  I drew a couple of rectangles rectangle and I drew numerous ovals oval.  First I drew one oval, then I used the copy/paste feature so all the ovals would be the same size.  I tried rotating a oval from the design area, but I found for a precise rotation the Rotate option for the Object menu worked better.   I used the Align option under the Object menu to align, center, and space the ovals on around the rectangles.

I didn’t like how some of the lines in the design.  The Erase and Knife cut and erase was a nice feature for removing unwanted lines.  I was able to adjust the settings in the right menu as each tool was being used.

A feature that the Silhouette Studio software is missing, is the ability for me to zoom in and out using the scroll button on my mouse.  Zoom in and Zoom out is available from the top icon bar.

The manual that came with the Curio did not cover all of these functions.  But, the manual that is available from the Help Menu in the software does provide detail information about all tools, menus, and functions.  I like to play around with any software before reading manuals.  However, this manual is beneficial for using the software and Curio.

The next blog will cover my experience with cutting and embossing.  For now, I will save my work.  This isn’t the first time I have saved my work.  One of my saying is “Save Often! Save Regularly!”  You can’t press save too often.

Silhouette Studio – Opening the Box

/ Sarah Collins / 1 Comment

The Silhouette Studio software comes with the Silhouette cutting machines (Cameo and Curio).  Since I purchased the machine, the software installation was a simple process.  Place the CD in drive and follow the prompts.  After the installation was complete, the Silhouette Studio software launched.

Silhouette Studio Start Screen

Silhouette Studio Start Screen

I wasn’t expecting this screen.  To be honest, I am not sure what I was expecting.  I knew if I clicked Design it would let me design a graphic for cutting.  Also, if I clicked Open it would prompt me to open a previous saved design.  I assumed that if I clicked Library, I would see some graphics.  That was the second surprise.  There wasn’t any graphics in the Library.   I thought that was odd, maybe it was something that you could download.  I clicked on the Store.

TheStore

The Silhouette Design Store wanted me to sign in, or create an account.  So, I signed in with the account I created when I registered the Curio.

TheStore2JPG

It appears that the store wants to charge you for everything.  After looking over the store, I remembered the cards that came with the Curio title “1 month free.”  I followed the instruction on the card and it provided a month subscription and $25 credit.  I am not sure yet of the benefits of a subscription, but I will figure that out as I explore more.

After looking over the store, the problem still remained.  The Library was empty.  Being the Techie I am, I decided maybe the software needed to be update.  Off to http://www.silhouetteamerica.com I went.  You don’t need to remember that URL or save it as a favorite.  If you are into the Silhouette Studio software, it has the link listed under Help.

silhouettewebsite

It took me a while to find where the Software Update was located on the site.

  1. Sign into your account; it is the same one you created when you registered the machine.
  2. Click Support, it is listed next to the Sign in.
  3. Click Silhouette Studio then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.  There you will find the update and download.
  4. Select one to download.  You do not have to run both the update and the download, because they are the same file.
  5. After the software downloads, run it.

After I went through all these steps below, I realized you can check for software updates from the Silhouette Studio software.  Look under Help > Check for Updates.

I went through the process of updating the software to see if any graphics would appear in the library, it was still empty.  I occurred to me “Maybe the $25 created was so you could select your own graphics.”

Back to the Silhouette Design Store to get some graphics with my credit.  The store had some very impressive designs. I selected a few for testing but adding them to the shopping cart.  When I went to check-out, it told me that these designs were for personal use only.  What I liked about the entire store, since I have credit it did not ask for my credit card.

My adventure with Silhouette Studio will continue…