Silhouette Layering Vinyl Tutorial (The No-Fail Method)

Well, I've heard your pleas...you want to know how to layer vinyl! I must give the people what they want and so today we're going to talk about the easiest, no-fail, pretty much 100% guarantee way to perfectly layer vinyl...on the first try!  You're in, aren't you?

Just a heads up, this method is meant for adhesive vinyl since it uses transfer tape, not meant for HTV.  If you're trying to layer heat transfer vinyl, click here for some tips and tricks!

I needed a way to better organize my vinyl and of course, I needed to make a label.  For this project, I wanted to make a text label with an outline aka offset...let's get started!

Best Adhesive for 3D Paper Layered Shadow Box

After cutting out all the cardstock layers of a 3d paper layered shadow box, you are going to definitely want all those layers to stand out. 

DIY Screen Printing with Silhouette and Adhesive Vinyl

Have you tried screen printing using Silhouette cut vinyl stencils?

There are several ways to screen print - including with a screen, but this specific technique doesn't require an actual screen on a frame.

How to Clean and Restick a Silhouette Cutting Mat

While I happen to be in the "Just Buy a New Mat" camp, I know a lot of you prefer to try to extend the life of your cutting mats by re-sticking them.

Since you all went pretty much crazy over my tip on how to easily clean Silhouette cutting mats I figured why not just give the people what they want...

10 Must-Have Craft Blanks and Packaging Supplies (at Wholesale Prices)

I get asked a lot about where to find wholesale craft items and packaging supplies without having a wholesale account. Today I thought I'd introduce you to one of my secret stashes! 

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

I have been shopping at PaperMart for years!! When I was selling at craft shows and on Etsy I used to get all of my packaging - including paper shopping bags - from PaperMart because their prices and selection can't be beat.

How to Conserve Vinyl & Your Silhouette Cutting Mat

Hi there! It's Becky and Glenna from My Paper Craze substituting in today! We're so excited to be here and share with another great tutorial!

One thing that we love about Silhouette School is all the awesome tutorials and information on how to save money. I mean seriously, crafting is a very expensive hobby, especially when it comes to supplies. So today, we want to add another nifty trick to the list! You may already be using a method similar to this, but it's one of those that is too easy to pass up!

Sharpening a Silhouette Blade with Tin Foil: Test Results

Alright so perhaps you've heard the advice that sharpening a Silhouette blade with tin foil will breathe new life into a dull blade. Well, my friends - I have too. And last week when I cut an intricate design and had the vinyl tear I went through my checklist of reasons why my blade wasn't cutting properly.

Three cuts later..I finally gave in and changed the blade, but kept the rest of the settings the same and whatdoyaknow: perfect cut!

So it was the blade after all and I'm just cheap and stubborn. I didn't throw that blade out yet though - I wanted to test out this little tin foil experiment since clearly the blade was dull.

How to Cut a Cereal Box with Silhouette (It's Easy and Awesome)

I'm handing the class over to the very talented Christine from Where the Smiles Have Been blog today.  Believe me she's awesome and she has some really cool tips for you today to save money on Silhouette supplies. I'll let Christine take it from here.

One of my favorite craft supplies to use with my Silhouette is not an actual craft supply at all....it's a cereal box! Yep, an everyday, run of the mill, weekly grocery store grab is an excellent substitute for chipboard or even wood. Here are some of the reasons why I love using cereal boxes for crafts:

• FREE craft supplies! You buy the cereal and the box is an added free bonus....what a great two-for-one!
• It's an easy way to be green and upcycle.
• They cut nicely with a Silhouette and also take paint (both spray and craft paints) very well. They also can easily be covered with scrapbook paper, vinyl, or other materials if you don't feel like painting.
• They are lightweight and easy to hang but still firm and sturdy.

No chipboard? No problem! Your Silhouette machine can transform a cereal box into a variety of projects: additions to wreaths, holiday decor, Christmas ornaments, door signs, gift tags, wine charms, scrapbooking features....the possibilities are nearly endless!

Use the Silhouette Studio Nesting Tool Like a Pro

One of the added features you get when you get the free V3 upgrade of Silhouette Studio, if you also have Designer Edition, is the nesting tool.

13 Reasons Why It's Worth 

Upgrading to Designer Edition

The nesting tool is one of the coolest features and one that will actually save you money in the way of supplies and materials.   The tool takes all of your designs and 'nests' them in the smallest surface area possible without any overlapping - minimizing waste.

It's really easy to use, too! I used the nesting feature recently while cutting out the numbers for a ruler growth chart.  I only had a scrap piece of white vinyl but by nesting, I was easily able to fit everything on the scrap piece.

All you have to do is create your design or type out your font like you normally would in Studio.

FREE or Cheap Silhouette Supplies: 9 Places to Look

If you're using your Silhouette as much as I do you start to look for places where you can find inexpensive Silhouette supplies.  I'm not talking about cheap stuff that's gonna break in a day or vinyl that's gonna peel up in a minute. I'm talking about decent quality stuff at a good price.  You can thank me later..but today's lesson is on a few little-known places to find cheap - and even FREE - Silhouette supplies.

Expressions Vinyl:  Expressions Vinyl offers FREE supplies for those who are willing to demonstrate or test products and then write a tutorial or post (you can write it on your own blog or write it and send it to EV to post on their blog) on how the product was used.  Check out their job board to see what spots they're looking to fill.   Also, check Expression Vinyl's Daily Deal every day! They'll often have as much as 50% off a single item.   Every day there's a different deal so check often.

DIY Nursery Art: Silhouette Tutorial

A few weeks ago a box showed up at my door. It was from Silhouette America and it was my challenge box containing four items that I would need to use to create a single project.  Inside my box was: Silhouette Adhesive Washi Sheets, a roll of Silver Silhouette Heat Transfer Vinyl, Printable Cotton Canvas Sheets, and Glitter.  Instantly my brain was going in 133,566,442 different directions.

I finally decided that this special delivery would be perfect for another special delivery - a set of girl twins my cousin is expecting later this summer.

Dollar Store Flower Pot Makeover with Vinyl Flowers (and a GIVEAWAY!)

A few weeks ago I shared some cute little watering can flower pots as teacher gifts for Teacher Appreciation Week.  Today I wanted to share a similar project, but instead of cutting text on vinyl, I cut flowers on vinyl and used both the negative and positive cuts to decorate the dollar store vase.   Here she is...looking awfully plain jane and screaming for some vinyl.  Oh, and did someone say 'giveaway'? OH.YES.I.DID!

Dollar Store Silhouette Vinyl Organization

My craft room is pretty much a certified disaster zone.  I won't scar you for life with pictures, but just know my husband has contemplated buying a hazmat suit for when he has to enter.  It's not that I'm a messy or unorganized person, it's just there's always 1405 projects going on at once, stacks of products to test for my favorite 'students', kids waking up from naps at inopportune times...and it all leads to a bit of an unorganized craft room.

There is one thing that put me over the edge though...and that was my growing stash of vinyl.   I spend good money on that stuff and the last thing I wanted was for it to get ripped, crinkled or walked on and just end up as a pile of waste.   So it was time to find a way to organize my vinyl.

DIY (Vinyl) Faux Carriage Garage Doors (Free Studio File & Giveaway)

If you've been following along on Silhouette School's Facebook page, you know my big project lately has been transforming my garage door into faux carriage doors.   They sell hardware kits and pop in windows to get this same look on your existing garage doors, but a few weeks ago I got this nagging idea that black vinyl would give me the very same look for a much cheaper price.  I could cut it myself, apply without making any holes in my garage doors, and always have the option of removal if I changed my mind down the road.  I am so happy I got up the courage to do this, because it came out better than I even imagined.

Now I'm going to say upfront...I have the Portrait and this is one of the only projects that I really felt limited by the smaller Portrait.  Initially, I wanted a slightly different window design, but after I traced the jpeg image of the windows in Studio, I realized that the 5 yards of black 651 Oracal Vinyl (courtesy of Expressions Vinyl) I had would not be enough for the project since I was limited to cutting just 8.5" wide.  Those extra 3 inches on the CAMEO would have made a big difference.   If I had the Cameo or if I had gone with the 10 yard roll of vinyl I think I would have been fine.  Regardless, I decided to go with the four square windows on each panel and had just enough vinyl with only a small amount to spare.  Yes, I was sweating and praying I didn't have a mis-cut.

The first thing I did was measure the "window" panels on my garage doors.  Not all garage doors are the same, so be sure you measure yours first and then make any adjustments to the template.  Each of mine are 16 x 10.5". Obviously, I couldn't cut in a solid window piece due to the 8.5" (wide) of my Portrait.  That is the main reason I decided to go with four window panes for each.  The space between each pane is exactly one inch.  I went with 1" so that I could use one inch wide 3M Painters Tape and easily get even spacing between all the windows.   After some calculating and adjusting and more adjusting I figured out (math's not my strong suit hah) each rectangular pane needed to be 7.5" x 5.25". 

Silhouette Sketch Pens Tutorial for Beginners

4/29 Update:  Be sure to read to the bottom of the post if you are using Studio V3 as the upgraded version slightly changes the location of the sketch pen option. 

Our Sketch Pen Series continues today with the very basics on how to use Silhouette Sketch Pens. This lesson covers how to sketch (aka draw) a single design (or font) with a single color pen

The basic rule of thumb in Sketch Pens 101 is you're going to design in Silhouette Studio like you would for a regular cut line, but when you go to cut it you'll just draw it instead.  For this example, let's use one of free designs that comes in the Silhouette library - the bicycle. 

Open Silhouette Studio > navigate to the library > double click the bike or whatever design you want to use to bring it into the work area.

Silhouette Loud: Should my machine be making all this noise?

Is your Silhouette loud? Are you concerned it's too loud? You're not alone.  It's a question I have gotten repeatedly from readers concerned there's something wrong with their machine.  Mary Jo is among them.  She writes:

"My big question is this - is the machine supposed to be really noisy?  I've been noticing that it is..."

So here's the thing - the Silhouette is not a quiet machine.  My machine is what I would consider loud.  Do I think it's louder than the manufacturer-issued Silhouette User's Guide suggests? Probably.   Do I think they are downplaying the noise the machine makes? Yes.  Do I think there's reason to be concerned?  In most cases, no.
 The official line from Silhouette is this:  "Please note that the Silhouette is unfortunately not a whisper quiet unit. The sounds you are hearing are likely normal."

Abnormally loud noise coming from the Silhouette machine could likely be caused by the motor if the packing tape that was used to keep it in place during shipping was not properly or completely removed.  The manufacturer suggests making sure any tape that was connecting the motor to the side of the machine is completely removed. 
 Thanks for coming to class today at Silhouette School.  If you like what you see, I'd love for you to pin it!

Silhouette Cutting Mat: Should the blade be cutting it?

The Silhouette Cutting Mat can make or break a project and therefore it brings up a lot of questions and concerns.   If it's not sticky enough the paper or medium can slip around and the design will get all wonky.   If it's too sticky it can be tough to remove the cut designs.  If the mat's loaded wrong the blade may cut outside the cut area.  And what about the blade actually cutting the mat?  That's the question we're answering today from a reader.

Joann asks:  "If my design is visible on the (cutting) mat, am I cutting too deeply? I know they are replaceable but...$$" 

Where to buy Cheap Silhouette Vinyl

The Official Silhouette Online Store is stocked with tons of supplies to make pretty much anything you can dream of using your Silhouette.

I recently went to buy a roll of 9"x10' white vinyl from the store. The price was $9.99, but I had a 30% discount code.  That's a great deal.  The only problem is they were going to charge me $8 to ship it! Yes, you read that right - I would pay more for the shipping than the vinyl.  Not this girl!

I checked a few online sites including Amazon and Save-on-Crafts, but couldn't find exactly what I was looking for and for a better price...that is until I hit up eBay.  I quick search for 'Silhouette vinyl' and I landed a roll of the Silhouette-brand white vinyl in the same size roll for less than $8 total.  The seller priced the roll at $7.95 and the shipping was free.

Lesson here: shop around and keep your eye out for great deals everywhere.  If you land a 40 or 50% off coupon for Micheal's, Hobby Lobby, AC Moore or any of the other craft stores, you can definitely score cheap Sihouette vinyl...you just have to know when and where to look.

Thanks for coming to class today at Silhouette School, if you like what you see, I'd love for you to pin it!