Freebie Friday: Farm Fresh Eggs

Freebie Fridays roll around quick here at Silhouette School! But I know you guys don't mind!

This week I am sharing one that I think all of those farmhouse lovers will love!

21 Can't Miss Silhouette Tutorials (July 2020 Wrap Up)

You guys...can you believe that a day stands between us and August? This pandemic is making things fly by way fast! 

This month we had a lot of fun at Silhouette School. We did a ton of fun projects, including a few hacks and of course had some awesome freebies!

How to Quickly and Accurately Use Up Your HTV Scraps

Do you have 1,234,567,890 scraps of the same HTV color? Saving HTV scraps from previous projects is such a good idea when you're working on small projects that just need a little bit of one color.

But using them on future projects can sometimes prove challenging - especially if you have a larger size project, but smaller scraps. In this Silhouette tutorial I'll share a trick for using small scraps on any size project!

How to Prevent Dye Migration and Heat Press Marks on HTV

Did you ever put white HTV on a red shirt or other surface only for the HTV to turn pink or press a shirt only to be left with a giant pressing mark? Those are known as dye migration and heat press marks.  Heat Transfer Vinyl can do this..and it's intensified the higher the heat and the longer the press.

This is a sponsored post, but all opinions are my own.

Today I'm sharing the easiest way to avoid lasting pressing marks and dye migration with HTV.

Sound Off: 20" Silhouette CAMEO Pro and 24" Vinyl Cutter Machine and Materials Survey

The long awaited Silhouette CAMEO Pro release date is expected later this year after several delays. Other than price and width it's expected to just be a bigger CAMEO 4...like the 15" CAMEO 4 Plus.

The 15" CAMEO Plus was released in January 2020, but many Silhouette users have held of waiting for the largest Silhouette machine, the 20" Silhouette CAMEO Pro.  As we approach the CAMEO Pro release date (exact date still TBD), I want to hear from those who are considering purchasing it.

Freebie Friday: I'm So Crafty I Sweat Glitter

You guys, it's everyone's favorite time here at Silhouette School...Freebie Friday! 

I think this may be one that a lot of you may love!

Warning: Reminder to Mirror HTV in Silhouette Studio May Cause Mis-Cuts

In case you didn't notice, Silhouette Studio gives you a prompt to mirror your design when any of the heat transfer vinyl materials (or sometimes non htv materials) have been selected in the Send panel.

The problem is...it can cause your design to mis-cut if you aren't aware of one very important thing!

How to Press Multi-Color HTV Designs in One Press: Silhouette Hack

If you're looking for a no-fail method for aligning and pressing 2-color HTV designs, then look no further!

Using the simple trick explained in this Silhouette tutorial, you'll save time by knowing exactly where to align the different colors of your HTV design and save money because this trick is designed to save as much HTV as possible.

Freebie Friday: Goal Digger

Where are my goal diggers?! You know who you are! 

My small business owners. Those of you that have dream boards at the beginning of each year and set goals at the beginning of each month. This design is for you.

Heat Press Hacks for Silhouette Users

Everyone loves a good Silhouette hack, right? Today I'm sharing a couple of heat press hacks with you because...we all need to save time, money, and materials in our crafting, right? 

If you hate wasting scraps and are looking for the key to the best seal when pressing, then today's your day!

DIY Chalkboard Vinyl with Oracal 651

From food storage to home décor pieces, chalkboard vinyl gives you the versatility to decorate and label any flat surface by turning it into its own chalkboard!

And now with THIS hack, you can turn regular, glossy adhesive vinyl into chalkboard vinyl. It's so simple, and here's how to do it!

Add Vinyl to Floor Tiles for a Cheap Upgrade: 7 Tips (Video)

If you're wanting to upgrade your boring wall or floor tile...vinyl may just be all you need! 

 

I recently added a farmhouse style tile design cut on vinyl to the tile in my low traffic guest room bathroom and it added a lot of personality to this otherwise kind of dull little space. I got a lot of questions about how I did this and where to find personal and commercial free tile SVG designs so I figured it was worth a tutorial on how to add vinyl to floor tile....so here are my seven best tips!

Freebie Friday: Y'all Ain't Right Free Silhouette Design

Yes...it's that time of the week again for another Freebie Friday!

Where are all my southerners? This design is totally for you!

Make Any Design a Split Design in Silhouette Studio

Split designs are perfect for adding customization so they're really popular with Silhouette crafters.

But did you know you can actually turn any design into a split design in just a few minutes in Silhouette Studio?  This Silhouette tutorial will explain exactly how.

Trick to Line Up Multi Color HTV on Dark Shirt

I get a lot of questions about how to line up the multi-color heat transfer vinyl designs.

We’ve talked a lot about this when it comes to putting the multicolor HTV design on a white shirt and some hacks that can help you with alignment but what about when you have a darker shirt?

How to Vinyl Wrap a Coffee Mug (Without Wrinkled Vinyl)

If you love the look of animal print, but don't have a sublimation printer and mug press, you can still add striking animal print patterns to your coffee mugs - just use adhesive vinyl and your Silhouette Cameo!

So, for all you animal lovers out there, here's how to do it.

Measure Your Mug & Trace the Pattern

First, wrap a tape measure around the widest part of the mug to measure how wide your vinyl needs to be. Then, measure how tall the mug is to get the height measurement of your vinyl. To give yourself a little leeway, add an inch or so to the measurements just to make sure you cut enough vinyl to cover the mug.

Next, open the animal print file in Silhouette Studio and resize it to the appropriate measurements you just took of your mug. For this coffee mug, I used one of the tiger stripe animal print patterns from the Mug and Tumbler Designs Bundle.

You can find a total of 19 animal print patterns (and so many more designs) in the Mug and Tumbler Designs Bundle over at SoFontsy.

This tiger stripe animal print pattern is a PNG file, which is an image file because it really meant to be a fill pattern and the perfect file format for printing this design on sublimation paper for pressing.

However, a PNG file is not a cut file. See what happens when you go to the Send panel? The only cut lines (red outlines) that appear is a big rectangle around the edge of the whole design (which is not what we want). We want the individual tiger stripes to be cut out.

So, to create cut lines around the tiger stripes, you need to trace this image.

Open the Trace Panel from the right tool bar. Click Select Trace Area and drag a box around the entire animal print pattern.

Since this image file has very high contrast, the trace is very easy, and you shouldn't need to make any adjustments. Just click the Trace button and then red lines will appear around the black stripes. Click into the black part of one of the stripes, then drag it down and away from the red lines.

When you click one of the red lines, you can change the fill and outline color of them to black. While the traced tiger stripes may now look exactly the same as the original file, when you go to the Send Panel, you'll see that now a red outline (cut lines) appears around each of the stripes. 

Be sure to delete the original PNG file (or move it off your mat) before sending this design to your Silhouette Cameo for cutting.

I'm using patterned permanent adhesive vinyl, but you can use any color of permanent vinyl that you like. Load your mat, then send to cut.

After cutting, do not weed the vinyl. If your printed vinyl has a white border around the edge, just use a paper trimmer to trim that part off so that all that remains is the colorful pattern.

Prepare Your Mug for Vinyl

Now, take your mug and line either side of the handle with a 1/8-inch-wide strip of tape like Scor Tape. Then, line the top and bottom edge with 1/4-inch-wide Scor Tape. These strips of tape will create guidelines for trimming off the excess vinyl later.

Usually you would use transfer tape to move the vinyl onto the mug, but we are going to hand place each of the stripes.

Peel up one of the stripes from your cut vinyl and begin wrapping it around the mug. Start applying it at one of the 1/8-inch Scor Tape strips and be sure to overlap the vinyl over the tape a little.

Press the vinyl stripe down firmly as you wrap it around the mug. The vinyl is pliable so you can slightly stretch it around the mug to make it lay completely flat. If you’re using printed vinyl, then don’t scrape the vinyl down too hard so you don’t scratch the pattern. If you didn't get the placing quite right at first, you can lift the vinyl stripe and re-place it.

Next, pick up another vinyl stripe and lay it across the mug just like the previous one, but leave a little gap between the two pieces. Repeat this process until you've covered the mug with the striped pattern, leaving a gap between each of the vinyl stripes.

If you find one of the vinyl stripes is too long and difficult to work with, you can always trim it with scissors first before laying it down. Just don’t leave any hard-cut lines in the vinyl, round them off with the scissors, and no one will even know you trimmed them down.

Burnish and Trim the Excess Vinyl

When the vinyl animal print has been applied to the mug, burnish the vinyl to the mug very, very well. Also, burnish the vinyl where it overlaps the pieces of Scor Tape. When you burnish this area well, you will see an impression of the Scor Tape in the vinyl where it overlaps underneath it.

Take a sharp craft knife and run the blade along this impression in the vinyl. Because Scor Tape has a little bit of "thickness" to it, you can gently rest the side of the blade against the Scor Tape as you run it along the tape's edge to cut off the excess vinyl.

Use a sharp blade, work slowly, and be careful. Cut off the excess vinyl along either edge of the handle and around the top and bottom as well. Remove the excess pieces of vinyl and then remove the pieces of Scor Tape.

Then, burnish the edges of the vinyl along where you trimmed them and then admire your handy work! What a gorgeous custom animal print pattern on this coffee mug.

You will want to be sure to let the vinyl cure for about 72 hours before using or gently hand washing (only) the mug!

Why lay the vinyl stripes one at a time?

At first, I tried to apply the vinyl stripes to the mug all at once with a piece of transfer tape - just like a regular vinyl decal. It was a big mess! The problem is the mug is slightly tapered which makes it almost impossible to get the transfer tape and vinyl stripes to lay down smoothly. The transfer tape buckled, and the vinyl stripes started to overlap and stick to each other. I spent more time pulling up and re-placing the transfer tape, than I did when I just applied each stripe individually. 

Additionally, when you try to apply the stripes all at once with transfer tape, you have to weed out the excess vinyl between the stripes. When you place each stripe individually, you don't need to weed, and you can actually use the vinyl between the stripes as stripes on another mug - so no waste!

Surprisingly, after making the second mug I had even more vinyl leftover than I thought so I had enough to make a third mug!

There are many more animal print patterns in the Mug and Tumbler Designs Bundle, plus so much more that they really isn't a reason to drink out of plain boring mugs and tumblers again. This bundle is sure to make all your mugs and tumblers look fabulous. Check out the bundle over at So Fontsy before it ends on July 13.

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. By clicking on them and purchasing products through my links, I receive 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!

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6 Tips for Weeding Small HTV Designs (Mandalas & Zentangles)

If you struggle to weed HTV designs that are small intricate and very delicate I have a couple of tips for you today.

These five tips will specifically help you if you’re looking to weed things like mandala designs, zentangles, and other intricate designs - which often include a lot of small pieces and can be difficult and challenging to weed.

Freebie Friday: Warning Dog Can't Hold His Licker!

It's Friday and time for another Freebie here at Silhouette School!! 

Where are my dog owners? This one is especially for you!

So Fontsy Just Got Fontsier...10 NEW Features and Updates!

If you're ever looking for commercial and personal use cut files and free SVGs and fonts...I'm of course going to recommend So Fontsy.

As many of you know along with Silhouette School, Silhouette U, and the Ultimate Silhouette Guide ebook shop - I am also one of the owners of So Fontsy.  We could not be more excited to have just re-launched So Fontsy capping off a nearly two year completely custom rebuild - bringing new features and a better overall experience for you and our awesome designers.

How to Create Dot Mandala Patterns with Silhouette Studio's Rhinestone Tool

Mind = Blown! The Rhinestone Tool in Silhouette Studio isn’t just for rhinestones!

We've used it for string art and faux rhinestones cut on HTV..but did you know you can also turn your SVG designs into dot mandala painting patterns?! This Silhouette rhinestone tutorial will walk you through!