Here's a wee geeky post today, a 101 tutorial  introducing the software for Silhouette cutting machines.

Silhouette Studio is the free software for use with the Silhouette Cameo and Portraits.  It is vector based, which means that the graphics are lines or curves which can be scaled to any dimension without losing accuracy. This is different from a bitmap pixel based program for images such as photographs which will look blurry if an image is enlarged too much.

The software comes with all the basic functionality you'd expect.  A good example project, in which I use a fair few of the basic tools to good effect, is the 'Sew Fabulous' paper cut that I completed recently.

I must get my crafty genes from my Granny Dilys who is a wonderful seamstress, baker and crocheter.  For her birthday, I made a paper cut saying 'Dilys Is Sew Fabulous' centred around a vintage sewing machine, similar to the old Singer treadle she taught my mum and I on.  I created a border of bobbins, buttons, scissors and other sewing paraphernalia.

I first started with a simple rectangular frame.  Basic shapes such as rectangles, circles, straight and curved lines are available on the left side of the software screen.  I drew a rectangle roughly and then used the Scale window to resize it to match the dimensions of an A4 page exactly, making sure to untick the Lock Aspect box.

I wanted a 1 cm frame, so a couple of options were available to me. I decided to use the Offset tool, but equally I could have copied the rectangle and resized the new one to be 2 cm smaller in both width and height and then centred the two rectangles.  The Offset option achieved the same goal a bit quicker. This tool allows you to draw a line inside or outside of a shape by a given margin.  I selected an Internal Offset, set to 1 cm and I was done :)

Now that I had two concentric rectangles, I filled them purple to help me visualise the final design.  As the rectangles were two separate shapes, they both filled completely with colour, but I needed just a frame.  The way to achieve this is to combine both shapes, into a 'Compound Path'.  This sounds scary but isn't really, the embedded shapes are just considered holes, or negative space and can be 'released' later if needed.

I already had a couple of of sewing related designs from the Silhouette Design Store so I clicked on 'Show Library', the book icon near the bottom of the left side menu.  I searched for the term 'sewing' and double clicked the designs to load them into my project.

Once the designs are loaded, then can be resized by dragging the corner in and out and rotated by dragging the green handle-bar, as is common in most image software. A Rotate window exists to rotate by fixed 45 degree increments or a specified amount if more precision is needed.  I also mirrored and duplicated some of the designs using the  Replicate window so that I could use them again elsewhere in the border. 

All fonts that are installed on your computer can be used when inserting text. Some neat features exist including curving the text along a shape, although this wasn't needed for this project.  The geek in me is pleased with details such as being able to control kerning (pairs of letters which would have large spaces between then such as AV).  I used the website Wordmark as mentioned in my Font Addict post to select the Edwardian Script ITC font. This font was already installed as it comes free with MS Office.

I used the Offset tool to make the lettering slightly bolder and therefore stronger in the paper cut design.  Just a 0.02cm Offset can make all the difference.  The Offset tool also welds together the letters into a which is handy.

For this project to work, the paper must remain in a single piece.  This means the Weld tool is incredibly important.  This tool joins any overlapping shapes into a single continuous shape and is particularly useful with text.   In the picture below, six individual shapes were placed together to make the continuous word 'Fabulous'.  Without using the weld tool, the Silhouette Cameo will but out each shape, regardless of overlap, leaving lots of small pieces.  If all the pieces are selected, and the Weld button is applied, we get a single merged shape as shown in the grey after position.

Unlike the Make tool, once Welded, the shape can only be reversed back to the individual components using the Undo button.  For that reason, if I recommend that they are just grouped (Ctrl + G or right click> Group) until near the end of the project, or a copy is taken before Welding.

 I used some purple iridescent paper from Anne Marie Designs.  It's one of my favourite papers and cuts brilliantly.  When the cutting was completed, I simply peeled it off the mat and it was ready!  I sandwiched the paper cut between some cardboard and popped it into the post.  My mum kindly framed it in a white Ikea Ribba frame.

Ta Dah!!!

I was very proud at my ability to stay within the lines when colouring in as a kid.  Just like my skills at the three-legged and wheelbarrow races, no-one told me that these endeavours had very limited shelf-lives.  I was hankering after getting one of these new grown-up colouring books for a long time, but was too embarrassed.  Then, on a holiday in France, I popped into the tabac and there were whole shelves devoted to zen colouring, labelled as anti-stress and art therapy.  Apparently French women have en masse adopted this trend and lead the world in terms of sales.  Well, when in Rome (or France) and all that ...

So I bought myself a wee book and some basic pencils, I happily skipped back to the villa for many hours of happy colouring.  I pinched Robbie's mum Jeanie's watercolours for the next page and bought me some Derwent Inktense pencils when I got home.

Having kicked my embarrassment truly to touch, I decided to buy Animal Kingdom by Millie Marotta.  This is Amazon's best seller in 'Adult Colouring', a category title that I think sounds a bit dubious!  It's worth noting that this book has two versions, one with white pages and the other cream.  There is no way to distinguish the two, so it's a matter of luck as to which you get.  I was lucky and have received white every time I've ordered (I've bought lots as pressies in my attempt to spread the colouring love).

Some folks have no appreciation of  beautiful stationery and scoff at those whose hearts flutter when near Paperchase.  You can probably tell that this post and indeed this entire blog,  is not for them.  My jeweller pal Di and I joke that our real hobby is actually shopping for lovely tools and supplies rather than crafting, so colouring has allowed me to indulge in my stationery fetish!

I scored a bargain deal in Sainsbury's a while back and got a roll of 25 stabilo pens for 70% off.  My collection had suffered quite sever pilferage from work colleagues, but I still had a decent colour range.  I assumed that this was the best range of fine pens, so was surprised to  read  recommendations for Staedtler instead.  I hunted out a fineliner from my stash and did a little comparison - Staedtler actually did perform better for shading.  I exuberantly decided on a 30 pack of fineliners for £18.15!

This is a great pack of gel pens from Asda.  They colour without leaving lines and can be layered - see the gold glitter over orange and brown on the owl piccie above.  They have been on sale for many months at £2, but the price has gone back up to £2.75 just now :(

Not only can they be used for colouring but I've discovered an easy hack to use them as a  Silhouette sketch pen.  The official Silhouette metallic pen pack is £9 for 4.  The hack is an especially good saving as the Asda pens are full length and so have at least twice as much ink.  You can see the silver pen in action in my last blog post - An Introduction to Silhouette Cameo 

Pencils are great for colouring as they don't bleed through the page and can be used for lovely shading effects.  I've not really used my pencils much, but I'm keen to do some more with them. 

I am really impressed by how vivid the Inktense colours become when water is added.  I think however that they might be better suited to other projects using watercolour paper as the colouring books can't handle much water before buckling.

I tried to suggest a little colouring competition at work, but they weren't up for it.  I vainly thought that this is because I'm too good, but in reality it is probably due to the fall out when I didn't win the baking competition 4 years ago!

If you are still resisting, I urge you not to, bring out those pens and pencils, print off a nice design and get to business :)

Colour With Clare Blog - Great reviews of books and supplies
Johanna Basford Blog - Creator of Secret Garden
Fantastic Cities Colouring - From The Guardian
Mathematical patterns - Maths + colouring, I'm in heaven!

The Silhouette Cameo looks like a small home printer, however it cuts rather than prints. It operates like a plotter and can cut very intricate and accurate designs by combining movement left and right at the same time as it feeds the mat up and down.  I've made a little video to show my Silhouette machine cutting the red lines in the first image below - a simple square and more elaborate ampersand.  The blade can also be replaced by a pen, meaning the machine can also sketch as well as cut, I've included this also in the video.  As you can hear,  it makes a racket, Robbie describes the noise as a dot matrix mating with a modem!

So far I've used my Silhouette Cameo for quite an extensive list of projects.

One of my first projects was to make Hello Kitty birthday invitations for my friend Christine's daughter Eilidh.  I was lucky to find this wonderful kit with papers and designs from  Shery K Designs.  Christine teases me for always 'taking things too far', so I decided to go full gusto and make the card an interactive, pop-up slider with a hidden message!  This tutorial from Beate at Split Coast Stampers describes the mechanism.  As I was making quite a few, I designed the invitation so that the Silhouette Cameo made all the cuts and creases, making assembly super fast :)  I also used a neat feature called Print And Cut which first prints the design, then cuts accurately around the image.  I couldn't believe how accurately it managed to cut out all the kitties especially around their whiskers! 

I've made lots of birthday cards using the cameo, often using the designs available from the Silhouette Design Store.  Each design is usually $0.99 (65p) but there are subscription packages which make them crazy cheap.  I normally never opt for these types of deals, but have found it very good value and have renewed twice.
The design can be simple individual components, such as a the owl or cat below, or a complete project, such as the baby crib card or floral lace card.

I used to despair at the cost and postage of gift boxes for my jewellery.  No more though, as the Silhouette Cameo can make them to the exact size I need.

I'm a big fan of Rob Ryan's charming, intricate and whimsy paper cuts.  Whilst I could never design something so beautiful, the Silhouette allows me to cut out pretty lattice designs, such as the Sew Fabulous picture that I made for my Granny Dilys' birthday.

Silver can be etched by covering the areas that are to remain raised and exposing the parts of the design that will be corroded away by acid.  There are various traditional approaches, including letraset rub-ons, tape and special paper called Press and Peel (PnP) printed with a laser printer.  The same approach is actually taken by techies who are making their own copper circuit boards.  In my pursuit of crafty knowledge, I've ended up finding out a lot about PCB prototyping! 

I found an Instructables article in which they use vinyl cut out by a plotter to make very accurate etched circut board and I got excited.  I then found this BlueberriBeads article where she uses the Silhouette Cameo for etching copper jewellery and was hopping up and down.  Ian at the Precious Metals Workshop where I had a workbench kindly let me have a shot with the etching machines, first with copper then in silver using a simple small design that I cut out in vinyl.  It worked BRILLIANTLY and there was quite the buzz around the workshop!

In the photos below, the top image shows the sheet of sterling silver just after it was removed from the etching tank.  The white parts are still covered with the vinyl.  The bottom images are finished pieces, oxidised to highlight the etching.

In a similar way to etching silver, glass can be etched by applying a cream called Etchall.  I etched a birdie design onto some Champagne glasses as a wedding gift to my friends Lorna and Martin.  Here are the glasses that I made for my brother last Christmas.  The AM design is his monogram and as he's a councillor for the Alliance party, I used the A from their logo.  Apologies for the terrible photography, etched glass is a nightmare to capture!

 The Silhouette can also cut garment vinyl, or heat transfer vinyl (HTV) for use with t-shirts and hoodies.  The vinyl has a protective top sheet and is attached to the t-shirt using an iron or hot press if you are a pro.

I've been making tons of baby outfits, kids t-shirts and hoodies for adults.  Most recently, I did some for my pals doing Berlin Marathon and London Shine Night Walk.  There is a huge array of finishes available - so far I've tried out regular matte, glitter, soft flock, glow in the dark, reflective, mirror metallic and iridescent!

There are so many other projects which I haven't attempted yet on the Cameo. 

Sketching - the blade can be replaced with a pen to draw instead of cut.  I've used this a few times for cards, but haven't really explored this feature.

Wall Decals - An upcoming project to make an underwater metropolis for my friend Veronica's kids now they've moved to France.

Fabric - The Silhouette can cut fabric (a separate blade is recommended).  I've downloaded some patterns for teddy bears but haven't started this yet.

Stencils - I've been toying with using the Silhouette to create adhesive stencils for applying a painted pattern to furniture, watch this space...

I'm keen to know what projects you'd like to see a tutorial on - vote and let me know :)

Pound shops are popping up everywhere at the moment. I resisted shopping at them for ages assuming everything was rubbishy tat. Don't get me wrong, the tat quota is high, but I've found some gems, in particular for crafting.

The Poundland card is great, it's a nice and bright white colour, prints well and cuts really cleanly with the Silhouette Cameo.

They also do a set of metallic adhesive paper that I use for cards, stickers and stencils.

If you guys have any bargain finds, I'd love to hear!