Silhouette Archives - Page 2 of 5

Giveaway: Silhouette Cameo! (+ current promotion info)

December 29, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made

It’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

The nice folks at Silhouette offered to let me give away another Cameo and I jumped at the chance…I know how many of you are dying to get your hands on one.

The Cameo is the new and improved personal craft cutter from Silhouette. The Cameo connects to your computer allowing you to cut fonts and images in cardstock, vinyl, heat transfer material, fabric, etc. I was a HUGE fan of the Silhouette SD and I wondered just how much better the Cameo could be. The answer: WAY WAY WAY better. In addition to the bigger cutting area, it’s quieter. The blade adjustment is easier and you don’t have to worry about losing the little caps. Your media loads SO much easier and there’s a pause button. The display is lighted, in case you like to craft in the dark.

If you’re not feeling lucky and NEED to get your hands on one, here are the details on the current Silhouette promotion:

Fabric Ink Starter Kit

Silhouette Cameo + Fabric Ink Starter Kit for $299 using code “CRAP”. This promotion is valid December 29th thru January 5th. You can wait and see if you win or you can order now. Supplies for this month’s promo are limited. (Add the machine and the kit to your cart separately and then use the code at check out.) If you already have a machine (The SD or the Cameo) and just want to get your hands on some of the ink, code “CRAP” gets you 20% off any of the ink supplies (starter kit included).

WANT TO TAKE YOUR CHANCES AND TRY TO WIN ONE? HERE’S WHAT COULD BE IN IT FOR YOU:

One lucky Crap I’ve Made reader will win her (or his) very own Cameo!

TO ENTER:

Faux Feed Sack Pillows

November 18, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 19 Comments

IF YOU’RE HERE TO ENTER TO WIN A CAMEO, IT’S ONE POST DOWN. (And this would TOTALLY be a great first project for it!)

You’ve seen the fabulous pillows made from feed sacks all over the internet, right? Pottery Barn had some made from coffee bags, even. I love them, but I don’t happen to have an abundance of feed sacks sitting around. OK, I don’t have any feed sacks sitting around and I don’t know where to get them either. So, I came up with this project to satisfy my love of the feed sack. Desperation is the mother of invention, right? And, this tutorial *might* even be better than the real deal because you can totally personalize a faux sack. What are the odds that you’d find an actual feed bag with your last name (or Santa or whatever) on it? (Hint: none.)

(I went the Santa route, since I originally developed this project for the A Swell Noel series over at Positively Splendid, but this technique would work for any image/lettering.)

SUPPLIES:

Canvas drop cloth, from the paint section. You can get a 6’ X 9’ one for around $10. That’d make A LOT of pillows.
Contact paper, vinyl, or freezer paper. I used contact paper because it’s cheap and can easily be fed through my Silhouette.
Silkscreen ink. I like Simply Screen by Plaid.
Sandpaper

HOW TO:

Cut your design or lettering out of your contact paper (or vinyl or freezer paper). I used a Santa silhouette from the Silhouette download store and then cut it with my Silhouette (on vinyl settings but slowed down to a speed of 5 and a depth of 7). You could easily do this with a craft knife as well.

Apply the contact paper to your drop cloth. I cut an 18” X 18” square because my pillow form was 18”.

I used that green scraper thing to get a good tight seal around the edges.

I like to stick the vinyl backing under my fabric to keep the ink from bleeding through and getting on my table.

Apply silkscreen ink with a sponge brush.

I like to use a scrap of contact paper to squirt the ink out onto.

Once the ink is dry, you can peel off the contact paper.

Then, take some sandpaper to your design.

Keep sanding until it looks old and worn and like it’s been part of the canvas forever.

Assemble your pillow (I made a simple envelope back).

And you’re done.

Please follow and like us:

Filed Under: DIY, fabric, freezer paper, holiday, home decor, sewing, Silhouette, vinyl

Giveaway: SILHOUETTE CAMEO!!!

November 17, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made

This thing needs no introduction, right?

The Cameo is the new and improved personal craft cutter from Silhouette. The Cameo connects to your computer allowing you to cut fonts and images in cardstock, vinyl, heat transfer material, etc. I was a HUGE fan of the Silhouette SD and I wondered just how much better the Cameo could be. The answer: WAY WAY WAY better. In addition to the bigger cutting area, it’s quieter. The blade adjustment is easier and you don’t have to worry about losing the little caps. Your media loads SO much easier and there’s a pause button. The display is lighted, in case you like to craft in the dark.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?

One lucky Crap I’ve Made reader will win her (or his) very own Cameo!

TO ENTER:

Basketball Player Costume, On the Cheap

November 3, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 20 Comments

In 3rd grade at my kids’ elementary, they get to participate in a wax museum. Each kid reads a biography and then dresses as that person for an oral report. The parents (and the rest of the school) get to come see all the kids in costume at once, posed and holding still. There’s the “wax museum” part of it. If you’ve been reading this blog for a really, really long time (hint: my mom), you might remember Macy’s Helen Keller ensemble.

Keller came home and announced that the biography he’d selected was for Steve Nash. Um, OK? The next sentence was “So you can just buy me a jersey or something…” Sorry, no. I love you but this is a book report. I’m not spending that kind of $$$ for a book report costume. I knew I had to get creative.

Supplies:

2 cheap-o t-shirts. Mine came from Michael’s and were 2 for $5. One was an adult size small and the other was an adult size XL.

Avery Personal Creations InkJet Iron-On Dark T-Shirt Transfers, White, Five Sheets per Pack (03279)
(I used 2 sheets out of the 5 sheet pack.)

You’re going to make the shorts from the XL shirt. Fold it in half and use the existing hem to save yourself some time. I traced a pair of Keller’s shorts and then just cut a little bigger for seam allowances. (Who am I kidding? This is a costume that will be worn for under 2 hours. I didn’t trace. I just cut.)

Be sure to include an extra 2” or so at the top for the waistband casing. Sew the inner seams on each leg and then sew the crotch seam. Make the waistband casing, insert some elastic and you’re done. Seriously…5 minutes.

For the “jersey”, I cut both sleeves off the size small shirt about where the (really wobbly) yellow line is in the picture below.

I pressed them under along the seam and stitched them in place so they wouldn’t flip back out. You could hem the t-shirt at this point if you want, but I just made my kid tuck it in (back to that whole “wearing it for less than 2 hours” thing).

For the Suns logo, I used the print and cut feature in my Silhouette Studio software. You can ABSOLUTELY do it without, you’d just cut out the shape with scissors. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: My Silhouette has made me lazy. Open-mouthed smile

Here’s a brief how to if you have a Silhouette and want to do it that way:

Find an image of your team’s logo. Open it in Silhouette Studio. Display your registration marks now so you don’t get all the way done and discover you made it like a millimeter too big. Trust. Once you’ve done that, you’re going to want to use the TRACE function (red arrow) and then select an area to be traced (green arrow).

Adjust your trace settings (bottom right hand side rectangle) until you get a good outline and then select the “TRACE OUTER EDGE” option (yellow arrow).

I’ve moved the logo out of the way so you can see what you just did a little more clearly. You can leave it put if your eyes are better than mine.

That line will cut precisely along the edge of the logo. I wanted a little white border, since my shirt was dark, so I used the “OFFSET” function. It’s under the “OBJECT” menu in the upper left hand corner. You can then change the thickness of the white border (blue arrow).

I still have the logo out of the way for the sake of tutorial clarity, but you’ll want to leave it put in real life. The last step is to change the inner most line so that your Silhouette will not cut it. You use the “CUT STYLE” menu (orange arrow) for this.

Change the inner line to “no cut” and leave the outer line as “cut”. Here’s what your finished design will look like before you print it from Silhouette Studio.

Print it on the Avery transfer paper and then put it on a mat and run it through your Silhouette. I used the medium cardstock settings. Apply it to your shirt following the package directions.

Put your name and number on the back, if you want.

Not bad for around $8, right?

Please follow and like us:

Filed Under: costumes, fabric, kids, sewing, Silhouette, tutorial

Sparkly Mustaches, aka the April Silhouette Promo

April 21, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 13 Comments

Silhouette sent me their rhinestone kit to try out this month.

I have to admit that I was not quite sure what to do with rhinestones because

a) I had never worked with them before.

and

b) There are mostly boys ‘round these parts.

Here’s the low down on how the Silhouette works with rhinestones:

You use the CD that comes in the kit or buy a design from the online store. DO NOT resize the design. I went with a mustache on account of the fact that Macy is OBSESSED with them right now. The picture directions that come with the kit are fabulous. Or, there’s an instructional video you can watch here. After you’ve cut your design, you peel it off and stick it to a backer board.

Then you dump out your appropriately sized (more on that in a minute) rhinestones and brush them over the holes.

This is how much of the design was filled in after I got done brushing.

Then, you use the handy dandy pick up tool to place the rest of them. The tool looks like this:

Once the design is completely filled in you put some special transfer tape on it

and then apply it to your garment.

WAY easy and I was impressed with how well the rhinestones adhered.

I was not impressed with the fact that my 10 year old has such a demanding social life that she had to take a call whilst I was trying to take an action shot.

So, about the rhinestone sizing…when you buy the design, it tells you what size stones to use. However, you probably won’t remember what size that was when you actually go to use it. I went back to the online store and located my design to find out. If any of you know of a better way to figure that out, please let me know!

And, I’m going to show you what I did to keep straight what size my rhinestones are once they’re open. I cut out the part of the bag topper that had the size on it and then just stuck it in the bag.

Smarter than your average bear, right?

Want the details on this month’s promo?

$229 gets you: A Silhouette SD, the rhinestone starter kit, 3 additional packs of rhinestones, and 1 Pick Me Up tool. This is a savings of about $125. GO HERE to add the bundle to your cart. The price will go down to $229 once you use the promo code “CRAP”

Or, if you already have a machine, all rhinestone products are 30% off.

The promo runs April 21st through the 26th.

And may I suggest you tell your husband you NEED a Silhouette for Mother’s Day? Winking smile

Please follow and like us:

Filed Under: Silhouette

My Peeps Shirt

March 26, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 11 Comments

I wanted to try Silhouette’s sewable interfacing, too, so I could give you my thoughts on it.

I decided on a quick shirt for Campbell, since I’m positive he’ll continue his streak of demanding mom-made holiday wear.

The chick shapes came from the Silhouette online store. The font is Aharoni.

The sewable interfacing definitely doesn’t cut as cleanly as the clean cut, BUT there still were not a whole lot of places where I had to trim strings…maybe 2 or 3? And, honestly, even if I’d had to re-cut every single line with scissors it still would be faster than tracing and cutting manually. Especially when I forget to mirror image stuff on the back when I’m doing it the old fashioned way and have to cut it more than once.

It was a good thickness for sewing and held stuff in place nicely.

So yeah. I liked it.

I sewed the letters all messy (on purpose, with my free motion foot). I’m not sure how I feel about them.

The March Silhouette promotion runs through Sunday. Use code “CRAP” to get a machine, both kinds of interfacing, and a roll of white flocked heat transfer for $229. Code “CRAP” will also get you 25% off the interfacing.

Please follow and like us:

Filed Under: applique, fabric, Silhouette

Office Door Makeover

March 23, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 11 Comments

***Don’t forget to enter to win Shelley’s awesome How to Slipcover DVD here!***

BC’s office is the only one in the building that has a window in the door. Nice, right? Not so much when EVERYONE in the place has to pass his office on their way to the bathroom. And they all like to peek in. I have it on good authority that he occasionally falls asleep at work, so he asked me to come up with some sort of window covering solution. Here’s what we came up with:

First, we “frosted” the glass on the inside of his office door using clear contact paper and Windex. There are a bunch of instructions floating around out there, so no tutorial on that, but the gist of it is that you spray both the window and the contact paper with Windex and then you smooth out the bubbles with a credit card and trim the edges with a razor blade.

The main limitation of this technique is that you can only “frost” stuff narrower than your contact paper. We had to make a seam. You can see it in this picture:

We put his name directly over the seam to camouflage that a bit.

Next, I imported the company logo into my Silhouette software and used the trace function. I found a copycat font and retyped the smaller lettering, because it did NOT trace well.

I used Silhouette premium vinyl and applied the logo on the outside of the glass.

And now he can sleep in peace!

MARCH SILHOUETTE PROMOTION:

Silhouette SD, one of each fabric interfacing (clean cut & sewable) and a roll of white flocked heat transfer material for $229.

If you already have a Silhouette and want to try out the interfacing, you can get 25% off.

The March promotion will run from the 21st through the 27th.

Code “CRAP” will let you take advantage of either of the deals.

Please follow and like us:

Filed Under: DIY, makeovers, Silhouette, vinyl

Name Art + March Silhouette Promo

March 21, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 71 Comments

You’ve heard me talk about my insane neighbor Jami before, right? Hint: The Smelly Barn Adventure™. After 3 boys, Jami’s expecting her first girl, and I’m lucky enough to be sewing the bedding and helping her execute the awesome ideas she comes up with. (We joke that we’re going to buy land with a barn in the country and have sleep over craft retreats. She’ll come up with the ideas because she’s WAY more creative than me and I’ll figure out how to make them happen.)

Do you see that freaking amazing wall treatment? We’ll talk about that in a few days. After I posted the preview of this project on Facebook, I received several emails asking about how she painted the furniture. We’ll talk about that, too. Be patient. Today’s just the name art. Winking smile

Jami picked up a framed picture at the DI (thrift store) for a couple of dollars. She picked it based on the fact that the shape was good for spelling out a name. We pried the print out of the frame using butter knives and then flipped it over so that you couldn’t see the print through our white on white backing fabric. If your frame doesn’t have a print in it, you could cut some foam core or cardboard and accomplish the same thing. We applied the fabric to the print using spray adhesive.

We figured out what size we wanted our letters and cut a test run with the Silhouette on notebook paper. You could ABSOLUTELY do this project without a Silhouette, you’d just have to cut the letters by hand. And unless you named your kids something long (like Charlotte…thanks mom), it won’t take long.

Because I know people will ask, the fonts are:

L – Big Top
U – Mixed Up, it’s the capital U
C – Oliver
Y – BoyzRGross

Once we were happy with the size, we got out Silhouette’s new fabric interfacing. We used the clean cut (stronger adhesive, not machine sew-able) because this project isn’t going to need to be washed or handled and we wanted the stronger adhesive.

We applied it following the package directions and got cutting.

We had the Silhouette double cut the letters, just to be safe. Look how nicely it cut!

After we had all the letters cut, we positioned them on the backing fabric

and ironed them in place.

Then we folded the edges of the backing fabric around to the back and secured them in place (more spray adhesive).

Jami hot glued some jumbo ric rac along the groove in the frame.

And…

Then she called me back to say she’d hung it, so I went back for a couple more pictures.

(Thanks to our other fabulous neighbor, Decorator Wendy, this is where it’ll stay.)

MARCH SILHOUETTE PROMOTION:

Silhouette SD, one of each fabric interfacing (clean cut & sewable) and a roll of white flocked heat transfer material for $229.

If you already have a Silhouette and want to try out the interfacing, you can get 25% off.

The March promotion will run from the 21st through the 27th.

Code “CRAP” will let you take advantage of either of the deals.

Please follow and like us:

Filed Under: fabric, home decor, Lucy's Nursery, Silhouette

Happy (?) Valentine’s Day!

February 14, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 24 Comments

So how was your weekend?

We had impetigo.

And puking.

Fun, right?

I took an insanely awesome photography class from the amazing Emilie of Photo by Emilie. We got to practice on real people. Scary!

Silhouette Dust Cover

January 31, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 47 Comments

***This dust cover is for the original Silhouette SD (which was THE ONLY Silhouette when I wrote this post). I don’t have dust cover patterns for the CAMEO or the Portrait.***

So, you’ve taken advantage of one of the Silhouette deals and you’re LOVING your machine so much you can’t bear to put her in a drawer…what’s a girl to do?

Whip up a quick and easy dust cover, that’s what. And did I mention that you can make this out of a single fat quarter? ‘Cause you can!

Supplies:
Fat quarter
Silhouette Dust Cover pattern piece PDF (the bottom measurement will be 6 3/8″ when printed correctly)
Sewing machine with thread
About 15 minutes Winking smile

Turn your fat quarter so that one of the 18” ends is at the bottom. Cut off 14″ so you have a piece that is 18” wide and 14” high (the bottom piece in this picture).

Fold the top piece in half and cut out the pattern piece. You’ll have 2 opposite end pieces

Place the end pieces even with the bottom edge of your fabric so that the short end (of the end pieces) points out and start pinning.

Pin all the way around the end pieces and then sew with a 1/2” seam.

Then you’ll want to hem the bottom of the dust cover 1/2” all the way around. I folded and pressed a scant 1/4” and then another 1/4”. Stitch hem in place.

Put it on your Silhouette and feel much better about leaving her out to admire.