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...]
Cut Doctor: Lesson 23 — Bad cuts part 2
Have you ever send a cut job to your machine, watched it work and away, then removed the material and realized it didn't cut the material at all or cut it all the way through? Yes, I see every hand going up! We've all had this happen at one time or … [Read more...]
Cut Doctor: Lesson 19 — When your cut starts well but then the machine goes crazy
Yes, I believe you! Sometimes it seems that your Silhouette machine is possessed. It starts great, then for some unknown reason seems to go completely crazy. It starts fine but then cuts in the wrong place, goes way too slowly, the blade doesn't go … [Read more...]
Drawing filled shapes or text: 2 ways to select attributes beforehand
I don't know about you, but I always work with filled shapes. Unfilled shapes are harder to move around, you can't easily see front to back order, and you don't know if you have groupings or compound paths (which makes a HUGE difference when you use … [Read more...]
How to assemble a Silhouette pen holder
The first time I looked at the Silhouette brand pen holder, I was completely confused. There are 5 different pieces in the package, and the instructions made no sense to me. I had to have someone else show me. So I'm going to return the favor and … [Read more...]
Hack to make sure text around a circle is centered
Today I want to share a quick tip with you about getting text in the right spot when you wrap it around a circle or arc. (If you don't know how to do that, see this post). It's not hard to do, but one thing that I used to struggle with was making … [Read more...]
Dispelling Text Myths in Silhouette Studio: 30 misconceptions about words, letters and fonts (Part 6)
Here we are in our last post about misunderstanding folks have when working with wording in Silhouette Studio. If you need to start back at the beginning, you can find Part 1 here. Today's 5 myths cover some miscellaneous topics about working with a … [Read more...]
Dispelling Text Myths in Silhouette Studio: 30 Misconceptions about words, letters and fonts (part 5)
Have you been learning lots of new things about working with text? I hope so! (If you haven't read about Text Myths #1-20, start here). Today we're going to learn about how to text edit in smarter ways by busting 5 more myths. We'll focus on how and … [Read more...]
Dispelling Text Myths in Silhouette Studio: 30 Misconceptions about words, letters and fonts (part 3)
In our series about working with text in Silhouette, we’ve already busted 10 common myths. If you haven’t read those, then start here. The 5 myths we’re talking about today are 5 more about fonts. They deal with how fonts are organized and working … [Read more...]
Dispelling Text Myths in Silhouette Studio: 30 misconceptions about words, letters and fonts (Part 2)
Today I'm continuing my series on things Silhouette users misunderstand about text in Silhouette Studio. If you didn't catch Part 1, you can find it here. In this lesson, we're going to go over some information about fonts: where to get them, what … [Read more...]
Dispelling Text Myths in Silhouette Studio: 30 misconceptions about words, letters and fonts (Part 1)
Wow, that title sounds like a bad talk show. LOL! A text myth is information you hear about when working with words and fonts in the Silhouette Studio software that simply isn't true. It’s not that the person saying it is trying to mislead you. They … [Read more...]
Successful Beginner Projects: #10 – Vinyl Wall Quote
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...]
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...]
Character spacing: how to adjust the spacing between letters on text
Today I needed a graduation card I could make quickly. I searched through my library and found one I really liked from one of my favorite designers, Lori Whitlock. It’s from the Silhouette Design Store and it’s #41562. It's cute, easy and it has a … [Read more...]
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Version 4 Send Area: #8 — How Text or Object on Path affect cut style
You may not know this, but in Silhouette Studio you can make words go around a shape. That's called Text on Path. New in version 4, you can also take a shape and use Object on Path to create duplicates of that shape around the contours of another … [Read more...]