Score/Emboss/Deboss with the Silhouette Curio!

I haven't bought a silhouette curio for myself yet but I was fortunate enough to have a friend who let me borrow one just to play with! We were having trouble figuring out how to emboss cardstock (65lb Recollections from Michaels) and a lot of blogs so far have done only vellum.

After watching a demo video, we have realized what we were missing/doing wrong in order to get the best embossing/debossing look and feel! We weren't scoring the page!!! Keep reading and I will show some examples of what I mean and I hope I can do it without recording a video of me explaining what I did. Well, let's get to it!

Initial try: No scoring used

Our first try with embossing/debossing feature didn't go so well. We were underwhelmed with how the embossing/debossing  looked on heavy cardstock. We had looked online and saw the sample photos of how crisp the lines were and I was determined to figure out why ours looked like the below.

(insert picture of paper here)

Debossing with no fill

Debossing with fill

As you can see above, the lines are not crisp and we even used a fill to try to get it to work. The edges are rounder than I would have liked and the imprint of the cloud looked very light in some areas. Little did we know we were missing something important!

Second Try: Scoring with blade 1

After watching a demo video, we noticed that people were scoring the paper beforehand so we decided to give that a try. We set our scoring blade to 1 and default for everything else and it cut through our card stock and the embossing mat. *sad face*

Ripped mat. Luckily it still works fine

Ripped paper and mat using a recommended scoring blade set to 1

Scoring at blade 1 for 65lb Recollections cardstock

Third Try: Scoring with blade ZERO

Since the paper was cutting through, I decided to change the blade to ZERO and changed the thickness of the embossing tool to 20 (I do think leaving it as default will be okay). After making that change, we were able to get a nice embossed look on the cardstock!! So if you are wondering if the curio can do it, it CAN! I highly recommend putting your blade on ZERO for 65lb card stock and working your way up so you don't mess up your mat like we did.

Score and deboss with no fill

Score and deboss with fill

Score and deboss with fill and double lines

As you can see, we tried different fills and all of them have different looks. The curio can definitely be pushed to make a lot of different variations and I now need my own machine.

 Score and deboss with fill

                                             Score and deboss with fill and double lines

Independence day lantern!

Last year, I made a similar lantern for Halloween on the day of and I wanted to change it up a bit this time and share it a lot earlier than that to give people a chance to use it for the actual holiday! This is a cube lantern to display on your tables during a BBQ and you can light it up at night as everyone sits around and talk after a nice meal.

Materials used:

• Vellum 
• Cardstock
• Glue
• Tea light (I used a battery operated one in the photos)
• Images found from the silhouette online store

Beautiful isn't it?

Silhouette America Update issues -UPDATED 6/16 09:50pm EST

Due to the push to upgrade to the latest version from Silhouette America, a lot of users are currently having issues after an update to their Silhouette studio. note: The latest version can be found here

For more information as to why this is happening and how to fix it, here is the FAQ article from the Silhouette page. I am copying and pasting the cause below.

Cause
The following concerns may cause this concern on a Mac computer:

1. The Operating System version is lower than the minimum required supported OS version
2. The Mac has a PowerPC processor (rather than an Intel® processor)
3. There is a corrupt font causing the program to crash as fonts are loaded during the start-up process
4. There is a library corruption

The following concerns may cause this concern on a PC computer:

1. The graphics card driver on the computer is not capable of running the Silhouette Studio® software program (even if the computer is newer)
2. The graphics card acceleration level is set too high (XP only)
3. There is a library corruption

After doing some research, several people have found that by updating their graphics cards to the latest version has resolved the crashing. For instructions to upgrade your graphics card, please visit the FAQ page here.

UPDATE 12:51 PM EST:

After looking through the Silhouette Cameo creation facebook page, I have come across a post from Kay Hall of the blog https://cleversomeday.wordpress.com/

• V6.6.632 will not work with Win XP
• The latest MAC version has been mislabeled as V3.3.631 and it will incorrectly report there is a new version available.
• Silhouette America will be patching  V2 to be called  the "Heritage version" for those who want to continue using it.

UPDATE 09:50PM EST:

A new version (v3.3.638) has been released and several users with issues installing are now able to successfully get the application to install and launch. No release notes are available yet for this version, but it might have fixed issues with Windows Installations.

If all else fails and you are not able to get the program to open on your computer, download the legacy versions until Silhouette America is able to address the issue with their latest version released on June 12, 2015 (V3.3.632). Remember to also reach out to Silhouette support so they understand who is having issues so that they can hopefully come out with a faster fix for everyone!

Before you update!

1. Take note of the version you have currently installed on your machine so that you can download the same one from the legacy version page. You can do this by going to Help->About Silhouette Studio (screenshots below)

2. Make sure you have a copy of your library! To do this, go to File ->Library->Export

This will help in case you have to uninstall silhouette studio. It will preserve any files you have saved to your library since you have started to use the software and you will not have to recover your designs from the store. Note: this does not save any files that are on your hard drive. 

To re-import your library, go to the same menu and "Import Library" instead. You will be asked for your online store info so that it can let you open the files you have bought from the store.

3. Save or look for your Designer edition code! To do this, log into the silhouette store and click on "My account" on the top right. You code will be found in the My Account page on the bottom.

Glass etching!

I have been dying to get my hands on Armour etch for a long time since I bought my vinyl and I had to wait for it to get to me after I ordered from Amazon. FYI, this stuff is highly dangerous and can only be shipped via ground. Be careful when using it!!

I also bought the mugs a few weeks ago from the dollar tree with the intention to etch something cute for a couple and I was so excited when I had time over the weekend to do it!

First I cut out a stencil using some vinyl and placed it onto the glass. Then I took a big glob of the cream and left it on the glass for about 20 minutes.

After the 20 minutes, I washed the mason jar mugs under water and peeled the vinyl right off to reveal the designs! It's not original but I thought it was cute =)

I also tried etching pyrex and this one took me a lot longer to finish since the stencil was very detailed. For pyrex items, I have found that etching for 20 minutes was not long enough and it should be closer to 45 minutes to get a good etch out of the material.

I now have a few orders now to personalize glassware! If you are interested let me know =)

Etsy Launched!

I finally launched my Etsy store after a few weeks of preparation! When looking back at my account with Etsy, I had opened it up back in August 2014 with hopes of selling something one day. As of two days ago, I am open!

Currently I am selling digital cut files for the Silhouette Cameo and other cutters but will eventually move onto physical products. I have already sold some of my Valentines day cards on there and if there is enough interest from the general public, I'll eventually list them =).

I have more products that I will be selling soon, I just need to take photos of them! For now, I would just like to thank those who have been supporting me all this time, you know who you are!


Here are some of the cards that I have available right now! If you want the listings, contact me @ papermementos@gmail.com

Custom Harry Potter shirts

In about a month I will be flying down to Florida to visit Universal Studios and I am super excited since I am a huge Harry Potter fan. I will be there for 3 full days so I thought, why not make shirts for each day while I'm there?

I looked online at first to buy shirts but a lot of them weren't in the colors I wanted and since joining a facebook group for the cameo, I found that I can make it for myself! I started to shop for some heat transfer vinyl and bought them from Expressions Vinyl which arrived very quickly. Next I found my shirts from Jiffy Shirts which had decent prices and waited for all them to arrive at my house!

I have to say that the Siser Easyweed was so easy to work with! I test cut the vinyl and on the second try I had the right settings and it was really easy to weed out the extra vinyl.

Picture of the vinyl on the shirt before weeding.

I didn't start working on them till a few days later because I was afraid to mess up the vinyl since I had to iron them onto the shirt so I did a lot of research before I tried. Below are my results, not so bad eh?

Vinyl stenciling using my Cameo

So while looking for ideas on what to give my husband for Christmas I stumbled upon a cup that was painted using oil based sharpies on Pinterest. The saying on the cup was "Home is where the Ho & Me come together". If you know my husband, everyone calls him by 'Ho' and I thought it couldn't be anymore perfect as a gift to him!

Materials needed:

• Ceramic mug
• Oil Based Sharpies
• Stencil material - either vinyl or contact paper (see second mug in post)
• Something to cut the stencil, either a die cutter or by hand

Step 1:
I followed the pinterest idea and created a stencil using vinyl that was cut on my silhouette cameo. I changed the font a little from the original mug I found because I liked the way this looked instead.

Step 2: 

I placed transferred the vinyl onto the cup and started to fill in the letters using the sharpies!

Step 3.

Peel off the vinyl/stencil and clean up the sharpie. My vinyl didn't stick on that well and the sharpie ran in some parts. Use acetone and a small tiny paint brush to clean up the lines!

Step 4:

Put your mug in the oven and start a timer for 30mins with the temperature set to 360 degrees. Make sure your mug is in the oven while it preheats to prevent cracking! After 30minutes, turn off the oven and let the mug cool inside the oven. After it's at room temperature, it's ready to be used!!

I have also made a second cup for myself using contact paper from the dollar tree instead of vinyl. The contact paper was a lot harder for me to work with and I had a lot of clean up to do. I think the next cup I make will be made using vinyl instead. 

(text reads "I love you more than a hobbit loves second breakfast"

Game of Thrones inspired gift wrapping

For those who don't know, I am a huge Game of Thrones fan and for Christmas I wanted to find a way to wrap a gift for my husband who is also loves the show. I started off with brown packaging paper to wrap the gift which is very popular nowadays. Then I found an image of the map of Westeros and cut it out in red using the Silhouette Cameo. 

After staring at it for a few days, I found that it was a little plain if I left it just like that so I added the red tag with Lannister sigil and tied it with red bakers twine. The second tiny present was wrapped in red with a matching gold sigil to tie in the theme. 

Hope you love it, and don't hate us for loving the Lannisters! Tyrion is the best character ever!

Merry Christmas!

I haven't uploaded anything in such a long time but since it's Christmas, I felt that I should at least post something! I have finally started to play with vinyl and I made some ornaments for my fur babies this year. I am so happy with the way it came out!!

Late post - Halloween card!

I had to wait until AFTER Halloween to post this card because I wanted to surprise a friend who loves the holiday. The funny thing is, I didn't even make him a card for his birthday but he gets one for Halloween instead. WHO MAKES CARDS FOR HALLOWEEN?? Well, I guess I do now =)

This card was inspired by other cards I found on Pinterest but other than that, it is my design. I had found a paper pad in Michaels that had paper for all holidays in a year and inside it had one with a spider web which was perfect. I used my cameo to cut out the holes on the left corner to give it some dimension and that was it!

Happy Halloween!! Free Trick or Treat Lantern Silhouette cut file

Hi everyone!

It's been a long time since I posted and since I have been so distant with this blog, I decided to make a cut file and share it with everyone. It is Halloween today and if you are in a rush to decorate for tonight's party I have a quick and easy cut file for you!

It is a Halloween lantern and I used clip art it and a built base for you put it all together.

You would need the following:

1. Silhouette Cameo software
2. Paper
3. Vellum (Orange for the best affect)
4. Tea lights
5. Glue

For you to make a complete cube, you would also have to cut out a 4x4 square which is not part of the cut file. ENJOY!

Download HERE

My five quick tips for Silhouette Cameo users - Ordered by importance!

I have had my Silhouette Cameo for about 10 months now and it is easiest the best investment I made in terms of my crafting hobby. Since buying one, I think I might have convinced about three people to purchase one of their own! (I'll wait for my check Silhouette America =P )

Anyways, here are FIVE quick tips for those who are just getting started with the Silhouette Cameo. They are ordered by importance! (#1 is the most important obviously):


1. Sign up for a free account with the Silhouette Online Store and download the weekly FREE designs! Why wouldn't you want to do this? You get free designs to use and some of them are really cute. You never know if you you will end up using one of designs later on.

2. Buy extra mats - Having extra mats will help if you have a lot of projects to cut. With a second or third mat, you can create an assembly line by preparing the mats with papers while you peel your design off of your first one! I currently have four mats and I bought all of them from Amazon (Silhouette Cameo Replacement Cutting Mat). It is cheaper to buy from there than straight from Silhouette America AND you can get it in two days if you have PRIME!

3. Do not throw away mats after they become "unsticky" - For a long time I was trying to figure out how to make my mats become sticky again and a lot of people suggested using spray on adhesive. Here is my opinion on it, DO NOT DO THAT!!! Over time it will create gunk all over your mat and it will become unusable. I had it ruin two mats and thankfully I just used Goo-gone to clean it. 

I now use Re-nu sheets from "That's Scrap, Inc" (website here). It is a layer of sticky stuff that is temporary and holds paper just as good as a new mat. It's not as tacky as the original Silhouette mat but it is strong enough to hold onto cardstock and thick glitter cardstock from Michaels.

4. Learn how to use the Trace tool in the Silhouette software - The tracing tool is amazing and honestly, you can trace almost anything! For best results I would find an email that is black and white with clear cut lines. You can even take screenshots of silhouetted images to trace in the software! I'll write a blog post on just tracing another time,

5. PIN PIN PIN!! Since using my silhouette cameo, I have been pinning a lot on Pinterest. I find a lot of ideas that way and I try not to copy others but sometimes you find things that are just amazing! I have two boards on there now, one on only handmade cards, and the other is silhouette tips and tricks. Find me there and follow or just pin things I already pinned if you fancy them!