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:The … [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...]
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...]
How’d they do that? Shattered technique
Have you ever seen a design and wondered, "How did they do that?" That happens to me all the time, and I usually don't rest until I've figured it out. If you can understand the techniques someone used, you can use on other designs. Today in our How'd … [Read more...]
Modifying this week’s Free Design to fit your project (and fixing some mistakes in it)
This week's Free Design in the Silhouette Design Store is a great one to teach you some concepts about how to modify a design to fit your project. It also is a teaching tool for how to fix messed up designs. I want to point out the mistakes and show … [Read more...]
Frugal Friday: make an easy Christmas tree shape
I'm betting we ALL need to save some cash this time of year. In today's Frugal Friday tip, I'm going to teach you to make your own Christmas tree. That means you don't have to buy one. It just takes a few simple steps. Once you begin to understand … [Read more...]
Adding a multi-color design element into a school mascot
My son's girlfriend coaches high school soccer. Of course, that means I just HAVE to make her some spirit swag. But I didn't want just any old design. I wanted to find a way to incorporate soccer. I love the final result, so thought it would be good … [Read more...]
Frugal Friday: Making the most of expensive HTV and vinyl material
As I told you in my first Frugal Friday tip, I hate to throw away scraps of expensive or beautiful material. I like to try to find ways to reuse the bits and pieces whenever I can. That’s certainly the case with any patterned adhesive vinyl or HTV. … [Read more...]
Knockout designs made easy
For my first project in my Spiritwear series, I want to teach you how to create a knockout design. This is a fun way to combine a school mascot with the team name or another phrase.I promise it will be easier than any other knockout method you've … [Read more...]
Photo crop in Silhouette Studio: how and why to do it
I’ve been working on a gift for some dear friends who moved away and are now returning to our home turf. I’m creating the design in Silhouette Studio and saving it as a JPEG so that I can get it printed professionally on a coffee mug. Today, I want … [Read more...]
Point Editing: taming all those little black dots (Lesson 7)
Here we are in our final lesson on Point Editing. If you need to start at the beginning of this series, go here. In today’s lesson I’m going to give you a few tips on working with points on text, show you how to edit points to help when you’re … [Read more...]
Pattern fill pizzazz: 7 ways to put your own graphic into any shape (method #7)
Today we're continuing our series on using raster images as fill patterns. If you haven't read about the other methods, start here. In this last method, we're going to talk about using the Modify panel in conjunction with a printable pattern. (But … [Read more...]