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...]
Simple smile design
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...]
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 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: … [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...]
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...]
Cut Doctor: Lesson 21 — Problems with the mat or material during the cut
We're delving deep into the body of the cut job here in our troubleshooting portion of the Cut Doctor series. (To start with Lesson 1 in the Cut Doctor series, go here). Our topic this time is reasons why your mat or material might act up during a … [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...]
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...]
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: #5 — Action by: Line, Fill or Layer
Now that you know the basics of the Send area, it's time to get into advanced options with Action by: Line, Fill or Layer (Advanced Cut Mode in version 3). In these modes, you choose your cut settings for each shape based on its line color, its fill … [Read more...]
Successful Beginner Projects: #5 Birthday 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...]
Why I never weld cursive text (& why you shouldn’t either)
Did that title surprise you? It sounds insane, right? I mean, we hear all the time from other users that if we don't weld text the letters won't all be connected and you'll get little tiny pieces at the overlaps. It's true that you need to do … [Read more...]