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First Steps in HTV: Project #1 — Polka Dot Heart Tea Towel

September 19, 2018 By Cindy Eckhoff

using htv with silhouette cameo beginner

I didn’t realize when I bought my first Silhouette machine that I could use it to make custom shirts, or that heat transfer vinyl would turn out to be my favorite type of material to work with. My boys (and their friends) seem to have several new … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Deluxe Membership Tagged With: beginner, heat transfer material, heat transfer vinyl, htv, iron, mirror, project, towel, weeding

Successful Beginner Projects: #10 – Vinyl Wall Quote

July 19, 2018 By Cindy Eckhoff

Are you ready for your final beginner project? If you haven’t gone through the Software Basics series and the other Successful Beginner Projects yet, I recommend you do those first because we will build on the skills already taught. In this project, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: auto weld, beginner, cursive, cut border, cut edge, free shapes, hinge method, load, margins, no mat, orientation, page size, right roller, Text, vinyl, wall, weld

Successful Beginner Projects: #9 Baby stroller vinyl layering decal

February 22, 2018 By Cindy Eckhoff

beginner vinyl

Today’s project is another one using vinyl layering. We’re going to learn about doing our vinyl layering before we put the vinyl on our project. I’ll also teach you about cutting 2 colors in the same pass, some new weeding techniques, and another way … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: beginner, hinge, layer, layering, reverse weeding, transfer, vinyl, weeding

Successful Beginner Projects: #8 Snowflake decal with vinyl layering

February 9, 2018 By Cindy Eckhoff

silhouette beginner vinyl

In today’s beginner project, I want to teach you about simple vinyl layering and show you a new application technique. We’re also going to learn a bit about working with small designs. Let’s get going! To start with project #1 in this series, go … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: beginner, cut settings, hinge, speed, transfer, vinyl, vinyl layering, weed, weeding

Successful Beginner Projects: #7 Teapot vinyl decal

January 10, 2018 By Cindy Eckhoff

silhouette vinyl decal

Now that we’ve gotten a simple 1-piece vinyl project under our belt, let’s move on to one with multiple pieces in a single design. If you haven’t done projects 1-6, I highly recommend you do. As we go in order through the lessons, I add new concepts … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: alignment, beginner, curved, successful, transfer paper, transfer tape, vinyl, weeding, weeding box

Successful Beginner Projects: #6 Snowman flat ornament

November 28, 2017 By Cindy Eckhoff

vinyl snowman

I hope you’ve gotten comfortable with cutting cardstock in our first 5 beginner projects. If you haven’t yet done those, I HIGHLY recommend it. You can find project #1 here. This set of 10 projects is designed to teach you in incremental steps and I … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: beginner, cut, cut settings, transfer paper, transfer tape, vinyl, weed, weeding

Successful Beginner Projects: #5 Birthday Cake Card

November 17, 2017 By Cindy Eckhoff

silhouette cake card

For our last cardstock project in the Successful Beginner Projects series, we’re going to make a birthday card. In this lesson I’ll introduce you to welding, drawing lines, setting line attributes, scoring, cutting by line color and more. We’re going … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: action, Align, beginner, cardstock, copy, cut by line, dotted line, draw, fold, line color, line style, score, select, weld, welding

Successful Beginner Projects: #3 Initial Gift Tag

November 7, 2017 By Cindy Eckhoff

beginner cameo project

In today’s Successful Beginner Project, we’ll learn to add text, draw a simple shape, create an offset and a compound path, use more scale and align features, and cut by fill color. This tag is great for any time, but especially Christmas. By putting … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: action by fill, Align, beginner, cardstock, christmas, circle, Compound Path, cut by color, cut preview, cut settings, draw, font, group, letter size, lock aspect ratio, material, offset, order, scale, send, tag, Text

Successful Beginner Projects — #2: Butterfly Gift Bag Decoration

October 17, 2017 By Cindy Eckhoff

silhouette beginner project

As a Silhouette beginner, the best thing you can do is start with some simple projects that get you successful right out of the gate. That’s what the Successful Beginner Projects series is all about. In project #2, we’re going to use the butterfly we … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: beginner, cardstock, cut style, no cut, paper

Successful Beginner Projects — #1: Schoolhouse Card

October 11, 2017 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

I used to work in Customer Support for Silhouette America. I vividly recall taking a phone call from a beginner who was having trouble cutting her project. As I talked with her, I found out she-- had never used a computer before. had been … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Free Content Tagged With: beginner, card, cardstock, paper

Software Basics (version 4) — Lesson 13: Basics of working with text

September 23, 2017 By Cindy Eckhoff

silhouette text

Text in Silhouette Studio is different than most other software programs. You may be used to working with text in something like a word processor or even email. In those, you add text just to make words for someone to read or to print out. That’s not … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: basics, beginner, font, kerning, software basics, Text

Software basics (version 4) — Lesson 12: Adding shapes to the page and basic manipulation

September 22, 2017 By Cindy Eckhoff

silhouette add shape

You’ve got your free shapes in your library and you’ve learned how to get around in the Silhouette Studio software. Let’s learn how you put those images on the page and start working with them. (If you need to start with Lesson 1 of the Software … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: Basic, beginner, color, Compound Path, cut line, Fill, grouping, order, resize, scale, select, ungroup

Before you Series Begin #7: Good Materials to Start with

September 22, 2017 By Cindy Eckhoff

Our next lesson will be on unboxing and setting up your machine. Before you do that, you’ll want to have some materials on hand to start with. Even if your goal is to make t-shirts with heat transfer material/vinyl (known as HTV), you want to start … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: 631, 651, beginner, cardstock, material, transfer paper, transfer tape, vinyl, weeding

Before you Begin Series #6: The Silhouette America website

September 21, 2017 By Cindy Eckhoff

silhouette website

While working in Customer Support for Silhouette, I once spoke to a woman on the phone. She was upset about something and asked, “How would I have known that?”  I replied that the information was on our website, to which she then replied, “Well, how … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: beginner, club silhouette, gift card, newsletter, silhouette america, support, website

Software Basics (version 4) — Lesson 11: Getting your free shapes

September 20, 2017 By Cindy Eckhoff

Your Silhouette cutting machine comes with free shapes to get your started. They are stored in the machine itself. So we’re going to open the software and hook up the machine to bring them into your library. We’ll do your first projects with some of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Basic Membership Tagged With: basics, beginner, designs, free, free shapes, images, library, software, software basics

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