Following my trip to La Vidalerie where I learnt salt-water etching, I've been a woman obsessed!  I've been etching copper, steel and silver with all different types of methods and I've written up quite a few tutorials too.

My first tutorial was on salt-water etching, featuring a copper keyring I made for Lisa at Silhouette UK.

Check out my wee diagram illustrating the set up:

I then made some things with Edinburgh Etch Solution, which is just ferric chloride with citric acid added.  This simple addition of the acid that's in lemon juice makes a faster, cleaner and longer lasting etchant that is cheap and non-toxic.

As the hipflask that I made my dad also used Edinburgh Etch Solution, I decided instead to make more of a hint and tips tutorial for all etching methods.  Indeed this tips are relevant for etching non metals too, such as glass or tiles.  I covered how to chose which parts are to be weeded or kept, how to envisage the end result in the software, cutting spares and also reverse weeding/weeding in situ.

Finally, this post covers two techniques for etching fine and sterling silver. I used electro etching with silver nitrate for the swallow and ferric nitrate for the hummingbird.

Brass - I ordered up some copper and brass shapes from Just Simply Blanks and they have just arrived today, yippee!  I also ordered a cheap guillotine cut 1kg mixed bag of brass sheet from Ebay.

Letterpress - I plan to make a letterhead or return address design to emboss onto paper using my Big Shot mangle thingy  to make a letterpress stamp.

Champlevé - I'd like to have a shot at filling some etched pieces with either real enamel (torch firing) or cold enamel (epoxy resin).  I also have some efcolor which has the benefit of needing only a domestic oven at 150 degrees, but I'm not completely convinced - think it might be a bit plasticky.  I will of course keep you updated.

A New Etching Solution for Zinc, Steel and Aluminium - I've been using Edinburgh Etch for steel, but I discovered this article recommending a new solution , so bought me some cheap copper sulfate from eBay, again in the words of Arnie,"I'll be back!"

My inner kid and not so inner geek were very happy with this quick little project.  Hop over to Silhouette UK if you'd like to make one yourself - it takes just 1 sheet of acetate and within 6 mins from clicking download you can be playing with your new toy :)

I recently received an email from a lady called Susan who asked the following:

If I made the word BABY filled with a patchwork pattern then put blanket stitch round the edge which went over the edge of the letter slightly, do I just have to print this out then cut it out, on my Robo, or do I have to draw the stitches with a pen?

I think this is what Susan is looking to make:

This is very simple to do, just follow the steps from my earlier video, but change the last few steps.  Rather than cutting the word from fabric and the stitch shape from heat transfer vinyl, group both together and print (registration marks on).  We don't want to cut either of these shapes, so set the grouped shape to  'no cut'  in the cut settings.  The key to produce the cut line, is using the offset tool on the grouped shape that has just been printed.  Here's an infographic:

I hope this helps Susan and others.  Any questions or comments are very welcome :)

I created a dingbat font from scratch!!! Permit me to be a boring boasty-boaster pants for a moment please as I'm seriously chuffed with my wee self!

I'm a HUGE fan of the blog Clever Someday and found Kay's Border Bits font really changed how I used Silhouette Studio.  It allows you to curve cicles, hearts and more snazzy shapes such as fleur-de-lis around any Silhouette Studio shape.  This is not normally possible, but because it is a font, you can use the text-to-path functionality.  This frees you to to do way more with your own designs and I use it alot.

So, when making fabric appliques with HTV edging for my niece Emily, I thought it would be nice if I could do embroidery style edging.  I looked around but couldn't find anything, so with another tutorial from Kay, I took the plunge and made one myself.  I'm such a geek, I stayed up through the night one Friday to make it, I'm so rock and roll haha!

Here's my Silhouette UK blog post which has a free link to download and it shows you hints and tips for using.  Next week, I'll have another blog post which will show how to use it with htv to make some baby rompers.

I am so excited to find the Silhouette cuts tartan wool fabric. Here's a tutorial in which I use it as the tie on a father's day card which is the free shape of the week at the Silhouette Design Store.  I defo want to do some no sew appliqué cushions now!

Up today on the Silhouette UK Blog is a tutorial that I am very excited to share with you. 

silhouetteuk.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/no-sew-fabric-applique-with-htv-edging.html

I have been meaning to try cutting fabric with the Silhouette for so long.  It works brilliantly, so if you haven't tried yet I urge you to give it a shot.

Here are some pictures of baby outfits I've made and also a few more that weren't part of the tutorial.

I'm not good with plants, we've no garden and only a couple of orchids, but their care is firmly in Robbie's domain.  That's why this dinky cactus caught my eye in B&Q, especially with it's oh-so-now concrete pot.

I decided my wee cactus needed a bit more bling though, so used some metallic copper vinyl that the very nice man at my local MDP store gave me.  He told me it was an end of roll and he was endlessly tripping over it, so I was only too was glad to rid him of it!  I've lots of plans for this shiny loveliness and copper is of course a weakness of mine, see my proclamations here- Blushing Over Copper

I used the 3D cactus file which is free for download this week, as I know for sure I won't kill these ones!
The triangles file was good, because I was able to use the triangles left behind from my real cactus project on the larger of my 3D paper ones :)

Sara has a tutorial up today showing how she made a super cute kawaii (cute in Japanese) t-shirt from the same file and also our guest designer Jan made some cowboy ones!  I'd love to hear if you used this file too - remember to enter the weekly challenge :)

Hi guys, up on the Silhouette UK Blog today we have a step-by-step tutorial for a papercut that I made for a wedding gift for my friends Emily and Callum.

This combines with the tutorial from last week, which is a guide to how to design many different styles of papercutting.

My tutorial to make faux leather mystery braid bracelets has been posted on the Silhouette UK blog today.  They also work as hairbands or even a belt for all little lady. 

http://silhouetteuk.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/faux-leather-mystery-braid-free-cut-file.html

This tutorial was just the most fun.  I became very addicted to making these little origami lanterns, so my craft room has them all lined up along my window :) 

It started out as a simple prototyping exercise to pick a design for some bedside lampshades, but I decided that they are super cute on their own.  The tutorial shows you how to make these lanterns and also includes a bonus free Silhouette cut file.