Saturday, February 25, 2012

Silhouette Saturday

Day 25 of NaBloPoMo and I am so over blogging everyday. It would be different if something important was happening everyday... but really, it's not. I feel like I am dragging myself to write on some days. Others, I have a lot to say. I need to find my voice here. It will come.

So, I have been a crazy Silhouette-machine-making maniac. Which is driving The Boys crazy because the dining room has been covered with cardstock and vinyl and contact paper and canvas and paint. You get the idea. I would love to have a craft room.

First up was the sign I made for Mason's birthday. This is an 8x10 frame that I change out every few weeks with a new Silhouette-made sign. This is very busy with too many pieces to it. I had a problem editing things out. I used the "Happy Birthday" font from this shape. I then added "Mason" using the Blackjack font and welding it together on the Silhouette Studio software. I really should have taken pictures of that step. Sorry. Next time. The whole idea of doing that was to make "Mason" all in one piece. I picked the Blackjack font because the "As" matched up pretty well with the "Happy Birthday" on that piece. However, I needed an "O" that could be attached to the "N," which it wasn't. So, I switched the "O" in "Mason" to the Brushscript font. I moved it around a bit and everything connected perfectly. Unless you are looking closely, I don't think you could tell it's not all from the same font.

The rest of the pieces are from Silhouette's Party Set. I used neon colors of blue, green, orange, and yellow on a black background. This is the first time that I have used the Silhouette for a multi-colored piece. It was fun. Maybe that's why I couldn't edit out all of the pieces.
I have been making a ton of banners. For Valentine's Day, I made one for a dear friend and then this one for Mason's birthday. I plan on keeping it and using it every year. This was huge. Over ten feet, I would say. And it was hung at 1:00am and weighed quite a lot. Thankfully, I had hung a cute banner I made for Valentine's Day on the opposite side of this half-wall, and had left the 3M hangers up. Anyway, I used the same Banner template that I used for my friend's Valentine's Day banner. I only used the two basic shapes and changed the font. The swirlies at the end? From the Party Set I used above!
Lastly, I am in charge of Staff Appreciation at Mason's school (their colors are blue, green, and white). This six weeks, the principal asked that we make a snack for the staff. Since the PTA had so much fun dipping things into chocolate for our Hot Cocoa Bar in December, we decided to make chocolate-covered strawberries (and I should mention that we were originally going to do this around Valentine's Day, but moved it because of an early release/staff meetings this week). Again, I used the same banner from the Valentine's Day banner and then used the same font. That font is kind of hard to read. This time, I used all of the pieces from the banner.

I also used the Menu Placard 3d shape (bottom middle picture). This is a cute shape that I'm sure I'll use a lot. I made a few which we used to make gluten-free brownies and other signs. This would be cute used for a birthday or any buffet, don't you think?

Finally, I used a simple frame shape to make a sign to please take a pencil bouquet (the PTA ordered these pencils to give the staff "bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils" like from You've Got Mail -- and my Mom and I sharpened all but 300 of them, and tied them together, added a tag -- our arms were so sore!). The best thing about this frame? It was one of the free shapes that came with the Silhouette, so it didn't cost me anything!
So, those are some of the creations I have made with my Silhouette this week. I am really getting my money's worth, I think. I am loving the Silhouette. Each shape you buy from the Silhouette store is from $0.50-2.99. However, I signed up for a neat $15/month membership that gives me $50 of downloaded shapes each month. Once I purchase more than $50, the shapes become discounted. This is a GREAT deal, considering that most Cricut cartridges cost between $35-85. Plus, Silhouette offers one free shape each week and discounts a bunch of shapes each week.

I absolutely love this machine!!

1 comment:

Kristin @ Sense of Wonder said...

Your creations are beautiful! I can't keep up blogging every day. I'm good if I get three or four out a week. Keep up the good work!