Today, I’m going to show you a design technique for taking an ordinary design and making into one that pops up off the page. I’m not talking about something like a card where it pops up when you open the card. I’m talking about a design that seems to … [Read more...]
How’d they do that? Outline words
I love the look of this week’s Free Design of the Week. It’s a phrase where each word is an outline only. Here’s what it looks like: Note: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you click the link and purchase something, I may receive a … [Read more...]
Planning and Executing Large Projects: Phase 3 — Sizing, Tweaking and Organizing
This is part 3 of our series on how to do super large projects with your Silhouette. If you haven’t read the first 2 lessons, you’ll want to start here. This time, I’m going to show you how to make your design full size, use Subtract and Subtract All … [Read more...]
Custom Color Palettes in Silhouette Studio Version 4.3
Have you ever wanted to be able to save custom colors in Silhouette Studio — make your own custom color palette? Then today is your lucky day! Note: This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you click the link and purchase something, I may … [Read more...]
How’d They Do That? Graduated Horizontal Spaces: Take #2
Recently, I shared with you how to alter a design, usually a word, so that there were empty rectangular spaces across it in increasing widths. If you didn’t see that tutorial, you can find it here. Today, I want to show you how to create a knockout … [Read more...]
How’d they do that? Graduated horizontal spaces
If you know me at all, you know I LOVE LOVE LOVE football. I was watching a game last night and saw a design on the shirts of some of the coaching staff. The team name had graduated horizontal spaces running through the team name. Note: This post … [Read more...]
How’d They Do That? Geometric Designs
One of the current design trends is geometric designs: regular images constructed of a combination of simple triangles or quadrilaterals (4-sided shapes). I thought it would be fun to show you several ways to take one of your regular solid, single … [Read more...]
How to make a stencil
I had a great question recently from a Silhouette user. She was wondering how to make a regular image into a stencil. This is a common question, and it’s easier than you might think. Let’s look at a few different ways to do stencils, from easiest to … [Read more...]
How’d They Do That? Half in, Half Out Logo
I’m one of those folks who looks at signs not only for the information on them, but to check out the fonts and graphics. This past weekend I was in an airport and saw a sign with the logo for Colorado Mountain College. It looks like this: Note: This … [Read more...]
First Steps in Acrylic Etching: Curio
One of the coolest things about a Curio machine is that it can etch materials. Initially, it was created to etch metal. Some super innovative folks have been finding other materials to etch. In particular, my friend Cindy Pope uses it to etch leather … [Read more...]
Simple Subtract: An intro to the Modify panel
Recently I was making a birthday gift for my sister. I had an idea in my head from a sign I saw at Hobby Lobby. It’s a pretty common graphic right now — a rooster standing on a pig standing on a cow. Sometimes they have words on each animal like … [Read more...]
How to clean a heat press
I freely admit that although I’m a very organized person, I’m not necessarily a neat one. As my creative juices get going I sometimes rush through projects to get to the end result. Or I take so long in the designing portion (which I find more fun), … [Read more...]
Making a shape into a card
This year I found myself needing a Father’s Day card and having only about 15 minutes to make it. (Ya, don’t ask). I had bought my husband some golf head covers and a pass to his favorite golf course, so I wanted — you guessed it — a golf-themed … [Read more...]
Planning and executing large projects: Phase 2 — Designing with the Layer tool
This is the second lesson in my series on how to do very large projects using your Silhouette machine. You can find Phase 1 on setting up the file here. In today’s lesson, I’ll show you how I added my design elements and used the Layer feature … [Read more...]
Planning and executing large projects: Phase 1 — Planning and Set-up
I’ve been working on a VERY large project lately — a forest of trees and animals for the children’s wing at our church. We’re going up 10 feet on the wall and it’s 45 feet wide. Plus we’re working around the entrance doors. How do you do something … [Read more...]