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?

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 =)

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!!

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!

Woven hot air balloon baby mobile

For a friend's baby shower I was looking for a different kind of baby mobile idea on Pinterest and came across a woven 3D baby mobile that caught my eye. I honestly didn't know what I was getting myself into!

I didn't take many photos in the process since it took me a LONG time to make each balloon and I am so thankful I only had to make five of them haha. For these balloons, you do not need a die cutter like I have, so you can still cut it out by hand if you want. It would just take a longer time. The pattern can be found here.

The PapterMatrix website is great and actually provides tutorial videos, they aren't perfect but it helped me out a lot when trying to figure out how to put the balloons together.

The materials you need are:

1. Glue
2. Paper
3. Tons of paper clips! (You NEED these!)
4. Beads
5. Dowels
6. Fishing line or another type of thin string
7. PATIENCE!

The first balloon actually took me TWO hours to make, YES TWO!!! I was pretty frustrated at it and I started to think about whether or not I should actually make them. I decided to push through and the rest of the balloons took me about 45 minutes each to make.

It was pretty hard to get the baskets on the balloons too, as you can see some of them are crooked in the photo =(. I probably wouldn't make another one of these since it took a long time. However, if you have the patience and this would be a beautiful one to make for yourself or for a friend!

Crafting Days: I heart U card

I wanted to try something different for handmade cards this time around and I had seen some cards on Pinterest that used embroidery thread as accents. The idea was very simple but the process did take some time since I hand punched all of the holes needed for the pattern.

First I printed out a heart and added the letters. I made sure the sizing was fine when compared to the card and taped it down onto the back of a magazine. Using a sewing pin, I poked holes along the outlines as evenly as I could.

After all of the holes were done, I used needle and thread and sewed randomly through the holes, while making sure that the letters were recognizable.

Crafting Days!: Stamp Catalog

So I don't have that many stamps but I am starting to a get a bit worried that I would buy the same ones on my weekly trips (shh don't tell my husband) to Michaels. After being on Pinterest for such a long time, I have seen a lot of people who catalog their stamps so that they can see what they have and to make it easier for them to choose the right one.

I figured since that I don't have that many right now, it would be a smart idea to start now before I bought more and go out of hand (shhh don't tell my husband ;)). With the amount of stamps I have, it still took me a 3-4 hours to sort, stamp, and clean all of them.

In the end, I ended up with 10 pages and I even scanned them in and uploaded it to Google Drive so that I can access them on the go! Now I don't have to worry about buying the same stamps now!

Crafting Days: Custom Toms!

One day at a friends house, I was web surfing through Etsy looking for random things to buy and I came across a woman who painted custom Toms. I saw that she sold one that were of Disney's Stitch and thought, "I CAN DO THAT MYSELF!". So here we are, with a little tutorial/step by step of how I did it!

Materials:

• A pair of Toms. I chose white so that I wouldn't have to worry about painting
• Paint
• Pencil
• Sealant/finishing spray

Steps:

1. Open the box of Toms!

2. Draw your design using pencil.

3. PAINT!!!!!!

4. Seal it, yea... seal it good. (make sure you do it outside haha) I did get a bit dizzy from the spray, just FYI.

5. Wait to dry and then wear them!