Silhouette Archives - Page 4 of 5

Etched Mommy Tree Plate

May 11, 2011 By Taylor 34 Comments

I made this cute little plate for my mom for Mother’s Day. Super simple but I think it was a hit. I made a stencil with my Silhouette, vinyl and transfer paper and used etching cream to etch the glass plate. My mom is the “M” at the bottom of the tree and the initials of her “kids” are in the branches. My husband is an honorary “kid” and of course we couldn’t leave off Clyde and Finn- her grand kids.

Have you used the transfer paper with the vinyl? I was like, what is this roll of white stuff? Then I tried it and it really helps. With a plate like this you have to etch the back of the plate, therefore you need to mirror the image. Also, this is my second time with etching cream (first project here) and just a tip, the bottle says leave it on for 10 mins, I did 30… last time I thought it was too light.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom! xoxo

Etched Juice Glasses

April 11, 2011 By Taylor 5 Comments

I think I am having a love affair with Monograms (as seen in my recent post here). I know I’m not alone, right? You know who else loves monograms; couples getting married that’s who. I know when I was engaged I loved receiving gifts with my new name on it. It seemed so magical.

Our friends are getting married next month and we got them a juicer off their registry but I of course like to add something personal too. So I found these cute juice glasses and I monogrammed them. (I also maybe wanted an excuse to use my new Etching Cream that I just got.)

I created a stencil with vinyl using my Silhouette but you could easily just cut out the letters with an Exacto. Then I followed the directions on the back of my Etching Cream, kind of. My directions said to apply a thick, even layer, wait for 5 minutes then completely wash off. I looked after 5 minutes and it wasn’t a very strong etch, so I left mine on for about 12 minutes. I picture the newly weds having fresh squeezed orange juice out of these on Sunday mornings.

Bird Trio

April 1, 2011 By Taylor 10 Comments

I love birds. Not in a “pet” way but in a home decor way. I didn’t even know how much I loved birds until I looked around my house about a year ago and realized I have a ton of bird stuff. Now I actually seek it out. I have at least one “birdlike” piece in every room of our home. Here is my newest edition, the Bird Trio, they are going to go over my craft table.

my craft space is so depressingly small in a picture

This project is so easy, I just spray painted three matching black frames. Then I cut all three images out with my Silhouette. The image on the right is available in the Silhouette online store. There were so many cute birdcages, I could hardly choose. Then the image on the left is a Taylor Made original. I just found a picture of a tree and used the “Trace” option (I love it) which you can read about here. When you use the Trace feature in the Silhouette software, you have to play around with the options in the sidebar. The middle image is from a Martha Stewart printable. Then all I did was mount them on grey card stock.

Here are just a few of the other birds that “live” in our house.

Welcome new birdies…

Monogram Plate

March 24, 2011 By Taylor 42 Comments

Last night, after sulking all day about my crafting slump, I crawled in bed with my copy of Martha Stewart Encyclopedia of Crafts (best book ever). I think I am healed, I knew Martha would help! I remembered something I have been thinking about – of a Chevron Striped Plate. Let me explain, I have a plate collection on the walls of my dining room, they all mean something and they all have a story. I even have two plates from two of my great-grandmothers, one of which is handmade. I thought a modern looking Monogrammed Chevron Plate would really give the wall a fresh “springy” look.

Plate Wall

Supplies:

-plate

-paper for the monogram

-vinyl

-Mod Podge

-Silhouette (Cricut or an exacto knife)

I wanted to do a Chevron Stripe on the background of my plate but any graphic pattern would work. I, of course used my trusty Silhouette! First of all you need to clean your plate so the vinyl will stick. Measure the center of your plate making sure to measue the curves of the plate too. Mine was a little over 10″ so I made my chevrons 10.5″ long. In my Silhouette software I used the chevron shape (which was the free shape of the week a few days ago) and loaded my premium vinyl into the machine.

About the Monogram… did you know that you can search “free fonts” in google and there are millions of fonts that are way better than the stadard loaded on your compuer. All you do is downloard them to your computer, then install them and they will show up in all of your programs like Power Point, Word and your Silhouette Software! So, I searched for a free Monogram Font and found the perfect one. Here is the link. Make your last name inital larger than the other two initials because that will be the one in the middle. Load your bright colored cardstock and cut!

I have no scientific instuctions on how to place your vinyl, if you are a perfectionist I’m sure you could measure but that is just too hard for me. So I eye-balled it. Just make sure to get out all of the air bubbles.

Apply a thin layer of Mod Podge down on the plate. I didn’t Mod Podge the outer ring of the plate. I used the Matte finish because it’s my favorite.

Carefully place your letters down, make sure they are all pressed down well by using a pin or tweezers and get out the air bubbles.

Apply a top coat of Mode Podge to the inner curcle of the plate. Make sure to get in between all of spaces in the letters and again, pop the air bubbles with a pin because they will dry funky if you don’t.

Now just wait for your plate to dry, and hang that baby up, it looks so profesh!