Silhouette studio software tutorial and project

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.

Sew Fabulous project

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.

Simple shapes and the scale window

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.

Offset tool

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 :)

Compound paths

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.

 The Silhouette Design Store

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.

Replicate Window

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. 

Adding Text

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.

Weld tool

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.

Cut and Frame

 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!!!