Hi gang, I'm sorry to have been away for so long.  I've been posting lots of tutorials on the Silhouette UK blog, but I haven't been updating you here.  To remedy this, I've made a dedicated page that has links to all the Silhouette UK tutorials I have posted.

​If you are on the desktop it's the furthest right on the menu bar at the top of the website.

On a mobile, the menu is at the top left and the page is at the bottom of the drop down list.

We are running a series of Silhouette Basics tutorials to explain the software and aspects such as blades and mats.  Click on any of the pictures below to follow the links to the tutorials.

Here's some other projects I've been doing since I chatted with you last.
A line art typography tutorial that went live today and includes free files
​How to cut shrink plastic
​How to do double-sided print and cut

Here is my first post of my favourite suppliers series.  I decided to start with this as there is a sale with incredible bargains at the moment, so figured this would be a timely one to start with.

I want to be clear here - I have no affliation with these companies or products, I just really like them!

My ultimate favourite paper to cut with is curious metals pearlescent paper.  It's a  nice thickness (120gsm) that cuts better than any other paper I have tried.  Given it's shimmery, I was surprised that it's very forgiving when bending and folding - I've used it to make both small  origami pieces and also a large lightshade.  The paper is double sided, prints beautifully and gel pens work well too.  Seriously, it's like the holy grail!

Quite a few shops sell this paper, but the best value by a country mile is a shop called Anna Marie Designs.

Currently in the clearance prices section, there are A3 packs of 50 sheets on sale for just £3, so that's just 6p a sheet instead of over 50p.  The normal price for these packs from the same shop is £9.99 and the next cheapest I've found for the same paper is another shop I use alot called PDA Card and Craft at over £25! 

My main gripe with this store is that I find the website very hard to navigate.  Here are the links to help you:
Main link with all colours A3 pearl paper regular price
Same pearl paper, all colours but A4
Bargain Corner
You'll actually find some A4 pearl paper on sale here, but weirdly it's actually more expensive than the A3 packs!
50 Sheets Antique Gold A3 Pearl Paper £3
50 Sheets Super Gold A3 Pearl Paper £3
50 Sheets Cognac A3 Pearl Paper £3
50 Sheets Cream A3 Pearl Paper £3
50 Sheets Ionised (Dark Grey) A3 Pearl Paper £3
50 Sheets Luster (Light Grey) A3 Pearl Paper £3 -the title says 1/sided, but the one I received was double sided 120gsm like the rest.
There are also bargains with sheets cut to be folded into cards
For example 50 sheets dark blue 6" pearlescent sheets for just £1

I've also bought linen and laid 120gsm paper, hammered paper and card - all lovely.  I  like the smooth card and the envelope packs are very good value and quality.  My favourite adhesive is the red hi tack tape and it's only £1 for 5m (3mm, 6mm and 9mm wide).

The only item I've not been so keen on is the single sided pearl paper - it's very pretty, but thinner and it was difficult to cut, so more suitable as an insert or backing.

Shipping is free over £30, under that it varies between £1.25 and £6.95 for up to 15kgs.  On first look, with a few items in my cart, the postage was sitting at £6.95 which felt very spendy.  Thing is though, paper is incredibly heavy - I recently bought a big haul of paper to split with my friend Danielle.  Her half weighs 6kg and will cost about £8 through Hermes, so I think it's fair really.  Processing times are 7 working days, which I think is on the high side, so it's not suitable for urgent rush orders (PDA would be my choice for that).  Sometimes also the parcel arrives with some items to follow, which happened for one items in my most recent order recently.

All in all, I'm a massive fan of Anna Marie Designs.  The range is big, the quality is really excellent and the prices are phenomenal!  I'd be interested to hear if you shop from here also and if you have any favourie products. 

Up on the Silhouette UK Blog today we have an acrylic plaque that I made for my Granny Dilys' birthday.  I applied the vinyl using the wet application technique and I have also included some tips for aligning.

The plaque is from a wonderful UK shop called Acrylic Craft.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I've decided to do a little series of posts about my favourite suppliers and Phil from Acrylic Craft is definately on my list.  This plaque is my first project but I have a few more things that I'm excited to make from my first order, so I'll hold off doing the review until I have a some more completed projects. 

Instead, I've decided to kick off with a shop called Anna Marie Designs.  I decided to start with this shop as there are currently some sale items which I think are insanely good value and I wanted to share before they are all gone!  I'll be back tomorrow with the low down and all the good bargains :)

Here in the UK, we crafters browse longingly at the superstores in the US.  Prices are so low and they have all the nicest colours and patterns.  We are officially well jeal! 

I've found some lovely sellers here in Blighty though offering great products at good prices.  My best recommendations are normally from follow crafters on the UK based Facebook groups - I find them great communities to discuss all things crafty, especially suppliers. 

Over the next few weeks, I plan to share my favourite shops who are selling the best crafting products including:

• Paper and card in all it's glorious textures, finishes and colours
• Self-adhesive vinyl - including matte, gloss, glitter, chrome and frosted glass
• Heat transfer vinyl - including matte, flock, chrome, glitter, glow in the dark and reflective
• Clothing blanks such as onesies, hoodies and  t-shirts
• Accessories such as shopping, make up bags, mirrors and badges
• Acrylic - plaques, baubles, clocks and even cute clothes hangers

Please note, I have zero affiliation with these companies, with no benefits for posting my reviews, I just really like them :)

Hi gang, I'm a member of a few facebook groups for Silhouette users and they are amazingly friendly and helpful places to ask advice about suppliers, techniques and software. Today, there was a question about how to take one shape away from another and my friend mentioned that not many people know how to use the tools in the modify window.

I had a quick example which people found very useful, so figured I'd share here and also give you a pdf link in case you want to print it out. 
Click here for the Mastering Modify Tools PDF

In the example above, crop and intersect do the same thing, but if more than two shapes are selected then they behave differently.  Here's an example with three overlapping rectangles:

In case you're looking for it, the Modify button is just to the left of the Trace button.  You can also navigate to it from the Object menu at the very top.

I hope this helps, any questions just holler :)

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 :)

We have a couple of those lap trays with the polystyrene balls underneath  that I totally destroyed with spilt acetone and other crafting abuses.  Following the success of my Winged Eyeliner stencilled make-up tray, I decided to give our two lap trays a wee make over using scraps from other projects.

I used Coastal Blue Milk Paint from favourite brand General Finishes.  It's  a deep midnight shade that I thought would go excellently with copper.  I bought it to upcycle a funky heaxagonal drinks cabinet I found on gumtree, but figured I'd give the paint a quick whirl on these trays first.  It's a no prime, hard wearing formula, but as it's such a dark colour, the first coat might look ropey - don't worry though it all comes good on the second /third coats.

I'm addicted to the glorious world of Liberty prints.  I picked up some of this gorgeous fabric in Mandors fabric shop in Glasgow and it's been waiting patiently for me to put it to good use.  I plan to make some fabric applique cushions with the fabric, but haven't managed to get around to that just yet.  For the trays, I just used my staple gun to attach the fabric all the way round the edges.

The fabric pattern reminds me very much of mountain scapes and our holiday to Iceland last year, so I decided to cut some geometric style mountain graphics using my trustee Silhouette Cameo from vinyl.  The kind guys at MDP Supplies in Falkirk gifted me this copper vinyl as it was an end of roll and always tripping them up.  What a score, I absolutely love it!!

The only problem now is that I don't want to use these trays in fear of wrecking them!

I'd love to hear from you.  If you have a cameo too, do you use it to upcycle?  Which tray design do you prefer?

Hey there, I'm back with my favourite thing FONTS!  Today, it's all about stencil fonts, which are great for cutting out messages for tags and banners as the middles don't fall out.

I have a quick video tutorial which shows you how to convert any font of your choice into a stencil version - it's super easy just cut a little notch out to create the bridge from the background to the inside of the letter.

The tutorial above covers how to convert the letters to stencil as and when you need to. 

I decided though, that I'd like to have a shot at converting a full font into a stencil version and then create it as a proper installable font.  I managed it with the help of the free software Inkscape and Glyhr Studio.  Here's the font, it's free for download here

If you are interested in how I loaded the Lobster font and replaced the letters which needed to change with my edited versions, here's the video:

This tutorial was sparked from a question on the Silhouette facebook group that I'm a member of.  My friend wanted to know how to make something like this:

It's now super easy with my font, takes just 17 seconds!

Of course the name is a clue here, it this font can of course be used for stencils.  I used it to stencil the phrase 'Never ask a girl with winged eyeliner why she is late' onto an upcycled tray.  The tutorial for this is here on the Silhouette UK Blog

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.