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When not to use a compound path

May 20, 2020 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

If you've read many of my tutorials, you know I love compound paths. Maybe it's because when I explain them, I use a donut as an illustration. LOL! Understanding compound paths and how they differ from groupings is KEY to designing and altering … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: Compound Path, designing, grouping, modify, subtract, weld

Simple smile design

May 11, 2020 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

Don't you love it when you teach someone, then they take that information and run with it and become great at doing what you taught them? I do! One of my sisters took my class on the Modify panel at one of the first All Things Silhouette conferences. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: design, Drawing Tools, mirror, modify, replicate, subtract, weld

Make your own toilet paper design

April 13, 2020 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

So, yes, we are all home a LOT. That means several things, but for my purpose today it means (a) many of us have extra time on our hands  and (b) we are using a great deal of toilet paper. Several cute sayings and designs have popped up around using … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Designing Tagged With: convert to path, cut edge, design, Drawing Tools, intersect, line style, line thickness, modify, perforated, rounded rectangle, subtract, warp

How’d they do that? Adding spacing between elements

January 7, 2020 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

spacing gap knockout

Today's tutorial is helpful for those of us, me definitely included, who have trouble lining things up perfectly. By creating an intentional spacing gap between different elements, you give yourself some wiggle room. This is helpful for any material, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Designing Tagged With: Compound Path, Fill, htv, knockout, modify, offset, outline, spacing, subtract, subtract all, Text, transparency, vinyl

Thanksgiving place cards

November 27, 2019 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

thanksgiving place cards silhouette cameo

We are hosting Thanksgiving this year in our home and I love to decorate for Fall. That includes setting a festive table. I made some quick place cards from standard designs. It's not hard to do, as long as you know a few principles. Once you learn … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Projects, Tools and Accessories Tagged With: foil quill, modify, place card, placecard, point editing, projects, Sketch, subtract, subtract all, thanksgiving

Planning and Executing Large Projects: Phase 3 — Sizing, Tweaking and Organizing

November 21, 2019 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: layers, locking, modify, organizing, subtract, subtract all

How’d they do that? Graduated horizontal spaces

September 27, 2019 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

graduated horizontal line spaces in word

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...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: modify, scale, spirit wear, spiritwear, subtract, t-shirt, weld

How’d They Do That? Geometric Designs

September 3, 2019 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

geometric silhouette design

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...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: divide, geometric, line style, line thickness, modify, subtract

How to make a stencil

August 23, 2019 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

butterfly stencil silhouette cameo

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...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: modify, stencil, subtract, weld

How’d They Do That? Half in, Half Out Logo

August 12, 2019 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

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: … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: control point, design, Drawing Tools, logo, modify, regular polygon, shapes, subtract, weld

Simple Subtract: An intro to the Modify panel

July 18, 2019 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

silhouette subtract modify design

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...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: design, modify, stencil, subtract, weld

Planning and executing large projects: Phase 2 — Designing with the Layer tool

June 25, 2019 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: Designer Edition, detach lines, large, layer, layers, mock up, mockup, modify, subtract, vinyl

Modifying this week’s Free Design to fit your project (and fixing some mistakes in it)

March 19, 2019 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: modify, point editing, subtract, subtract all, weld

Frugal Friday: Making the most of expensive HTV and vinyl material

September 28, 2018 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

glitter sparkleberry htv

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...]

Filed Under: Designing, Materials, Tips Tagged With: detach lines, frame, heat transfer material, heat transfer vinyl, htv, modify, pattern, PixScan, scraps, subtract, vinyl

Point Editing: taming all those little black dots (Lesson 7)

June 29, 2018 By Cindy Eckhoff Leave a Comment

silhouette edit points for trace

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...]

Filed Under: Designing, Silhouette Studio Software Tagged With: closed, convert to path, crop, curve, curved, Drawing Tools, edit points, Fill, freehand, magnet trace, modify, open, path, point editing, points, polygon, raster, simplify, smooth freehand, subtract, Text, trace, trace and detach, tracing

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