Silhouette Project & Ideas (Student Project Saturdays #11)

 

Welcome to the 10th Student Project Saturday where we share reader projects that have been submitted throughout the previous week on our Facebook page.

To submit a project just leave a post on our Facebook page with a photo and a brief explanation of the project if you feel it needs explaining.

If you have a blog or an Etsy shop or some type of social media you'd like us to link back to leave that, too!  Otherwise we'll be crediting with just a first name (for privacy purposes.) 

And here's this week's A+ Student Projects:

21 Silhouette Tutorials, Tips, Tricks and Ideas You Don't Want to Miss

Another one is in the books, folks.  May has been extremely busy here at Silhouette School. We've covered everything from how to install faux vinyl windows on your garage to how to make a circle monogram, fix a stuck mat, layer vinyl on the first try and even introduced you to some new awesome Silhouette-friendly products on the market.

We had three fun giveaways, answered your questions on the blog and on our very active Facebook page, gave away FIVE free cut files/designs, and featured more and more of your projects every Saturday on Student Project Saturdays. 

Since I know you've been busy with your nose in Studio, perhaps you missed a lesson or two. Here are 21 Silhouette Tutorials, Tips, Tricks and Project Ideas from May that you definitely don't want to miss!

1. DIY End of the Year Teacher Gift: Fingerprint Art Meets Silhouette
2. How to Remove a Silhouette Cutting Mat Stuck in the Machine
3. Silhouette Print and Cut Heat Transfer Iron On Tutorial (Baby Onesie)
4. Polaroid Father's Day Card (Free Silhouette Studio Cut File)
5. Dollar Store Flower Pot Makeover with Vinyl Flowers
6. Silhouette Circle Monogram Tutorial (Your Font Choice)
7. 10 Places to Find FREE Silhouette Cut Files
8. Print and Cut Silhouette Troubleshooting: Lines Not Printing
9. 31 Silhouette Sketch Pen Project Ideas...Get Your Sketch On
10. How to (Easily) Make Wavy Text in Silhouette Studio
11. Silhouette Layering Vinyl Tutorial (The No-Fail Method)
12. Dollar Store Silhouette Vinyl Organization
13. Dingbat Font Flower Garden Flag (Free Studio Cut File)
14. DIY Print and Cut Wall Decals using Square1 Printables)
15. How to Use Multiple Sketch Pens with Silhouette
16. DIY (Vinyl) Faux Carriage Garage Doors (Free Studio File)
17. Teacher Gift Idea: 'Thanks for Helping Me Grow' Flower Pot
18. Spring Chevron and Bicycle Art {Made with Silhouet...
19. 4 Ways to Fill Fonts with Sketch Pens
20. DIY Tooth Fairy Kit (FREE Silhouette Studio Cut File)
21. Baby Boy Onesie: A Heat Transfer Vinyl Silhouette Tutorial (Free Studio Cut File)

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. By clicking on them and purchasing products through my links, I received a small commission. That's what helps fund Silhouette School so I can keep buying new Silhouette-related products to show you how to get the most out of your machine! 

Thanks for coming to class today at Silhouette School.  If you like what you see, I'd love for you to pin it!

Baby Boy Onesies Using Heat Transfer Vinyl (Free Studio Cut File)

A few weeks ago I shared a sneak peek on the Silhouette Facebook Page of a set of twin baby boy onesies I quickly made using heat transfer vinyl.  Apologies for the delay...but I'm finally getting around to sharing the tutorial and the free cut file!

I made these newborn onesies for one of my college roommates who recently welcomed twins! I usually skip right over newborn size because the kiddos grow out of them so fast, but these little gents were a few weeks early and I figured they didn't have much to wear being 4 pounders.

I wanted the onesies to be different, but still similar. And since I'm slightly obsessed with monograms, of course, I had to work the boys' initials in there, too!

If you haven't caught on by now, the Silhouette Online Store is pretty much the last place I look for designs.  I'll do anything to save my .99! So, I started by doing a google image search for baby bow ties and ties.  When I found a few I liked, I brought them into Silhouette Studio and did a trace.  If you need a reminder on how to turn a jpeg into a cut file click here.

DIY End of the Year Teacher Gift: Fingerprint Art Meets Silhouette

By now you're probably tired of me sharing teacher gift ideas, right? 'Cause, ya know, in the last month I've already shared one here and here. Sorry...when you've got little guys in school that's how you roll...at least that's how I do.   My son just finished his first year of pre-school and, I'm sorry, but there's pretty much no gift I feel is good enough for a teacher who teaches a bunch of 2 year olds! My son had two of the best this year and so I organized a little craft to give each of them from all of the kids.  It's extra special because it includes each of the children's finger prints.

How to Remove a Silhouette Cutting Mat Stuck in the Machine!

If you haven't experienced the joys of having your Silhouette cutting mat stuck in your machine, count your blessings.  This thing can be a beast to remove with the load and unload buttons doing nothing to budge the mat.  Fortunately, I'm here to share a few tips on getting that stubborn mat back!

Silhouette Print and Cut Heat Transfer Iron On Tutorial

A few weeks ago I shared a tutorial on how to make print and cut wall decals using Square1 Printables.  I briefly mentioned another cool product from the same company called Square1 Iron Ons.   I got a few questions about the Iron Ons so I thought it was worth a post of its own to address a few of your burning questions...and it's perfect timing since at the time of publishing these babies are on sale at the lowest price they've every been: $1.50/sheet. 

Let's start from the beginning though.  The Iron Ons come in 8 x 11.5" sheets that can be run through your inkjet printer.  They're great for more complex and colorful designs that would be hard, if-not impossible to achieve with regular heat transfer vinyl.  For instance, this pair of shades has a slight grading effect in the lenses.  You're not going to get that on regular HTV, which is where SQ1 Iron Ons save the day.

I found my design on PicMonkey.  PicMonkey.Com > Design > Overlays (butterfly) > Sunglasses.  The little crown next to the glasses indicates they are part of PicMonkey's paid upgrade service, Royale. If you're not into paying $33 a year for access to all the designs, fonts, and layouts that's cool - just pick another one of the FREE options - there are tons!

Polaroid Father's Day Card (Free Silhouette Studio Cut File)

I can't believe it but I'm already getting requests for Father's Day. I guess it is less than a month away already!  My husband hates spending money on cards so we rarely buy cards for each other, but that's not stopping me from making cards!

I designed this card based on a similar Father's Day DAD card I found on pinterest.  I put my own twist on it by adding the Polaroids and I think that really 'makes' it!   Once I had an idea I got to work creating the cut file (which you can download at the end of the post).  I think it turned out really cute and it's totally customizable.

Just a few tips about this design and putting it all together...

Dollar Store Flower Pot Makeover with Vinyl Flowers (and a GIVEAWAY!)

A few weeks ago I shared some cute little watering can flower pots as teacher gifts for Teacher Appreciation Week.  Today I wanted to share a similar project, but instead of cutting text on vinyl, I cut flowers on vinyl and used both the negative and positive cuts to decorate the dollar store vase.   Here she is...looking awfully plain jane and screaming for some vinyl.  Oh, and did someone say 'giveaway'? OH.YES.I.DID!

Silhouette Circle Monogram Tutorial (Your Font Choice!)

I've been asked more than once how to make a circle monogram in Silhouette Studio.  Sure, you can buy a circle monogram font...or you can make your own using the font of your choice.  There are about 10 steps involved here so just bare with me...I promise it's pretty easy just breaking it down!

10 Places to Find FREE Silhouette Cut Files

Call me cheap, call me tricky...call the trace feature my BFF! It's true...pretty much the last place I look for Silhouette cut files and design is the Silhouette Online Store.   There are so many other places you can find free designs and cut files, why would I spend my .99 there if I don't have to?  I'd rather save my craft fund for supplies I can't get for free!

Today I'm going to let you in on my 10 favorite places to find FREE Silhouette Cut Files and Designs!  

#1 Google Search - I always stop by Google first and do a Google image.  Just a few key words and I can usually find something that will work for the design I'm looking for. Any JPG, PNG, or GIF can be brought into Silhouette Studio and traced to be made into a cut file which means the possibilities are pretty much endless!  Here's an example of a google image I found and then traced in Studio for a print and cut file project.  
 
#2 PicMonkey - When I want to design my own images instead of using a stock image from Google I turn to PicMonkey.  There are a huge selections of free fonts, designs, labels, decals, shapes, and overlays. that you can use to make a custom design.   You can get access to all of the designs and fonts by upgrading to the Royale package - it's just $33 for the year.  PicMonkey designs are great for both print and cut projects as well as cut files - just save a jpeg and bring into Studio to trace. Here are a few examples of ways I've turned PicMonkey designs into Silhouette cut files.  

Print and Cut Silhouette Troubleshooting: Lines Not Printing

The Silhouette Print and Cut tool is one of my favorites features of the die cut machine. It can also be one of the most frustrating when things don't go right.  I was recently creating a print and cut design from scratch.   The tooth fairy receipt, which is part of my tooth fairy kit, prints with several blank lines that need to be filled out by the tooth fairy.  However, I forgot a key step in the design process and the first time I printed the receipt the lines next to 'name', 'age' etc did not show up.   So now I'm here to tell you why the lines aren't printing on print and cut and how to fix it in Silhouette Studio.

Silhouette Project Ideas & Inspiration (Student Project Saturdays #10)

 

Welcome to the 10th Student Project Saturday where we share reader projects that have been submitted throughout the previous week on our Facebook page.

To submit a project just leave a post on our Facebook page with a photo and a brief explanation of the project if you feel it needs explaining.

If you have a blog or an Etsy shop or some type of social media you'd like us to link back to leave that, too!  Otherwise we'll be crediting with just a first name (for privacy purposes.) 

And here's this week's A+ Student Projects:

31 Silhouette Sketch Pen Project Ideas...Get Your Sketch On

Silhouette Sketch Pens are a really cool - and easy - way to add sentiments and designs to you Silhouette projects.  They can be used in so many different ways...now that you have taken our 5 part Silhouette Sketch Pen course - your imagination and creativity are your only limits.  If you're looking for ideas and inspiration on how to put your sketch pens to use, check out the 31 amazing projects below and get your sketch on.

Dollar Store Silhouette Vinyl Organization

My craft room is pretty much a certified disaster zone.  I won't scar you for life with pictures, but just know my husband has contemplated buying a hazmat suit for when he has to enter.  It's not that I'm a messy or unorganized person, it's just there's always 1405 projects going on at once, stacks of products to test for my favorite 'students', kids waking up from naps at inopportune times...and it all leads to a bit of an unorganized craft room.

There is one thing that put me over the edge though...and that was my growing stash of vinyl.   I spend good money on that stuff and the last thing I wanted was for it to get ripped, crinkled or walked on and just end up as a pile of waste.   So it was time to find a way to organize my vinyl.

Dingbat Font Flower Garden Flag (Free Studio Cut File)

In case you haven't noticed I've been happily doing outdoor projects recently - ahem, my vinyl window garage door makeover.   Today I'm going to share another outdoor project, this one not nearly as involved...or as much of a commitment.  I made this flower pot garden flag using nothing more than a scrap of burlap, a piece of freezer paper, a dingbat font and some paint.

How to Use Multiple Sketch Pens with Silhouette

Our popular Silhouette School Sketch Pen Series continues today with a tutorial on how to use multiple sketch pens on a single Silhouette design.  This is actually easier than it sounds as long as you have a basic understanding of sketch pens.   

If this is your first time sketching, I highly suggest you go through our Sketch Pens 101 tutorial because this tutorial will assume you have some basic knowledge of how to use sketch pens on your Silhouette machine.  Go ahead, I'll wait right here...promise.

For this tutorial let's use one of the free designs that comes in the Silhouette library.  I'm going to pick the 'Sunshine Always Follows the Rain' design because it's a combination of an image and text.  So go ahead and open up your design in Studio.

DIY (Vinyl) Faux Carriage Garage Doors (Free Studio File & Giveaway)

If you've been following along on Silhouette School's Facebook page, you know my big project lately has been transforming my garage door into faux carriage doors.   They sell hardware kits and pop in windows to get this same look on your existing garage doors, but a few weeks ago I got this nagging idea that black vinyl would give me the very same look for a much cheaper price.  I could cut it myself, apply without making any holes in my garage doors, and always have the option of removal if I changed my mind down the road.  I am so happy I got up the courage to do this, because it came out better than I even imagined.

Now I'm going to say upfront...I have the Portrait and this is one of the only projects that I really felt limited by the smaller Portrait.  Initially, I wanted a slightly different window design, but after I traced the jpeg image of the windows in Studio, I realized that the 5 yards of black 651 Oracal Vinyl (courtesy of Expressions Vinyl) I had would not be enough for the project since I was limited to cutting just 8.5" wide.  Those extra 3 inches on the CAMEO would have made a big difference.   If I had the Cameo or if I had gone with the 10 yard roll of vinyl I think I would have been fine.  Regardless, I decided to go with the four square windows on each panel and had just enough vinyl with only a small amount to spare.  Yes, I was sweating and praying I didn't have a mis-cut.

The first thing I did was measure the "window" panels on my garage doors.  Not all garage doors are the same, so be sure you measure yours first and then make any adjustments to the template.  Each of mine are 16 x 10.5". Obviously, I couldn't cut in a solid window piece due to the 8.5" (wide) of my Portrait.  That is the main reason I decided to go with four window panes for each.  The space between each pane is exactly one inch.  I went with 1" so that I could use one inch wide 3M Painters Tape and easily get even spacing between all the windows.   After some calculating and adjusting and more adjusting I figured out (math's not my strong suit hah) each rectangular pane needed to be 7.5" x 5.25". 

Teacher Gift Idea: 'Thanks for Helping Me Grow' Flower (Free Studio Cut File)

Did you know that this week is Teacher Appreciation Week?  Totally is..and you're not too late to celebrate your child's teacher.   (And hint, hint Mother's Day and the end of the school year are just around the corner, too.) This is a really quick, easy, and inexpensive teacher gift made even easier by the Silhouette.  Plus, I asked my cousin - who's a teacher - what one of the best gifts she ever received from a student was and she told me a potted plant with a sign reading: "Thanks for helping me grow."  So there you have it...this is a total win!

Spring Chevron and Bicycle Art {Made with Silhouette}

Oh, chevron, how I love you. Oh, Spring, how I adore you. Oh, Silhouette, how you make my life so much easier.  That is definitely the case for this project which is based off a beautiful chevron fabric art piece created by the very talented, and very patient - I might add - Lia Griffith.  Lia's work caught the eye of Silhouette School reader, Deanne, who emailed me for help turning this labor-intensive fabric and scissors version into a paper Silhouette project.

Deanne wrote to me saying...

"There is one thing I would love to try.  A project I found at Lia Griffith blog.  I would like to make it with paper instead of fabric, and figure my Silhouette has to be able to EASILY cut out that shape!  Much easier than doing it all by hand.  But, I’m afraid I would get so frustrated trying to figure out this simple shape that I would skip it all together!  Wondering if it might be a lesson you would do?"

Ding ding ding we have a winner.  I love the chevron art piece as much as Deanne does and so I was happy to help!  The best part about this chevron art is that one of the free designs that comes in the Silhouette library is a chevron border. It works perfectly for this. So enough chit chat let's get started. 

Open up Silhouette Studio and go to your library. Click the Chevron Border design.  

4 Ways to Fill Fonts with Sketch Pens

Perhaps the most frequently asked question we get here at Silhouette School regarding sketch pens is how to get the pens to fill in a font.  The answer isn't nearly as simply as I wish it was, although this lesson will show you a few different ways to get font that appears filled.

Let's take a step back first, though. When you think about sketch pens, it's easiest to think about them the same way you think about the blade.  Just as the blade only cuts around the edge and leaves the negative space solid, the pen is only going to sketch the outline of a letter.  It's not going to act as a crayon to color in the inside of the letters.  That being said...I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

The most straight forward - and least labor intensive - way to get sketch pens to fill in a font are to buy sketch fonts specific for this. However, most are thin handwriting-style fonts and they're not 'filled' in as much as they are just a single solid line instead of an outline.  Sketch fonts can be purchased at the Silhouette Online Store the same way you purchase designs.  Use the search box in the SOS to search for "Sketch Font".

DIY Tooth Fairy Kit (FREE Silhouette Studio Cut Files)

Wowzers! You guys earned this one. I told you if we got 200 likes or 50 shares on the photo of my Silhouette tooth fairy kit on Silhouette School's Facebook page, I'd share the free cut files. Well, in less than two hours you did it! That's a-maz-ing! Flattering, overwhelming, humbling...