I love putting vinyl on anything and everything. I also change my mind a lot and sometimes want the flexibility to change a theme. Vinyl is perfect for that! I found this plain square glass plate at Cost Plus and knew it was a perfect canvas. I debated whether to cover the whole underside of the plate and ultimately decided just to fill in the middle. Used a piece of scrapbook paper and Mod Podge.

I have been wanting to do something with a butterfly motif and the hardest part was deciding which image to download from the Silhouette online store. I decided on this swirly one. I re-sized it to fit and cut it out using a leafy green Expressions vinyl.

I am definitely not a dainty clean crafter. Just keeping it real here. Sometimes stuff gets stuck to the mat but it mostly comes off pretty cleanly.

I’m also a “I can’t throw that away because there must be something I can do with it “ crafter ( aka HOARDER). I’ve seen this idea sold in craft stores to decorate your walls…using vinyl as the adhesive to attach paper or lightweight wooden embellishments. I adapted it to my butterfly plate. Punched circles out of scrap vinyl, and made rolled flowers from some paper scraps:

I hot glued the flowers to the vinyl, peeled off the back and stuck to my plate. Done and done. And if I decide I want to take the flowers off and/or change my butterfly for something else, peel away!

Thanks for spending some time with me. I hope you’ll pop by for a visit!

Today I want to talk about “Dusted Crystal” vinyl.  Huh?!?  It’s the most awesome thing ever – better know as “Etched Glass Vinyl” and when you’re buying vinyl at Expressions Vinyl,  it’s listed under the “specialty vinyl”.  It makes something look like etched glass.  With the ease of a vinyl sticker.  SO great!

For example, my kids have been leaving our sliding glass door open all. the. time.  What is with that?  And now we have our air on and I’ve turned old and am constantly saying “we don’t want to pay to cool the outdoors”.  So I crafted up a solution – this beauty:

And you’re probably noticing that’s an awful picture – I swear I cleaned the glass before the photo, but apparently only on one side.  And taking a picture of see-through-ish vinyl is tricky.  So then I tried at night – it was worse!  I wish I could invite you over to see how great it looks in person – but you’ll just have to know that it’s awesome.

I used my Cameo which I love because it will cut any font that you have loaded on your computer.  Have you ever looked into grabbing a few free fonts – you will be sucked in for hours – it’s a whole world of typography deliciousness.  But if you have a Cricut you can cut any letters you want with the cartridges you have.  Either way, give Etched Glass Vinyl a try – it’s awesome!

At Thanksgiving we had family over – last minute I ran and cut “Thankful” out of frosted vinyl and stuck it to the mirror that was by the table.  Those fun extra touches.

In the past I made a memo board out of an old window – you can see the words cut with Etched Glass Vinyl (you can see more about this craft on my blog HERE).

Dusted Crystal Vinyl is like glass etching without the mess or long-term commitment – give it a try!!

I love that I am not limited with my creations!

Silhouette provides their own resource for downloading individual designs that I have found to be fairly extensive and inexpensive and I can usually either create my own design or find one of their’s to purchase.

There are a few cases however when I neither want to create my own design (because it was too complicated) nor could I find what I needed from the Silhouette store.

So what’s a girl (or guy) to do??  Search the internet or course!

Did you know that you can download and use SVG files in your Designer Edition upgrade of your Silhouette software!?  How amazing is that!!  (Go here to purchase your Designer Edition software).

And did you also know that there are a plethora of great, FREE SVG file resources out there?!?  Seriously.

If you do just a bit of searching, you can come up with a few reliable, stylish, fabulous, free resources out there for your SVG files.

But.  What do you do after you found your SVG file?  It’s pretty simple really, but unless you’ve done it before, you might feel lost.  So I’m going to walk you through the process, step by step.

First off, you will want to download your design from the website and save the file in a spot that you will be able to find it again. (Be sure that you only download files from trusted resources and I always advise to keep your virus software up to date too.)

Depending on the source, you will probably need to UnZip / Extract the file.

After you’ve made the file accessible, go ahead and open up your Silhouette Software.

Click on your drop-down “File” menu.  Select “Import to My Library.”

Next, you will want to select your file from the pop-up window.   You might need to change your File Type to “All Files” in order for your file to show up.  Once you see it, select it and click “ok.”

A new window will pop open.  Go ahead and type in an appropriate Name and select Ok.

When you want to use the SVG file(s) you imported, click the “My Library” left side-bar button.  Then select “My Own Designs.”  Double click the design and it will automatically appear on your cutting mat.

You can size your image as large or as small as you want it.

If you need to modify it further, right-click the design and select “Ungroup.”

Depending on the design of the file, you could be able to move part of your design or modify further.

One last tip…be sure to check that the file is set as a cut file.  Select the “Cut Style” button on the top bar, select your image and be sure that “Cut Edge” is selected.

Now your image is ready to cut!!  With fabulous Expressions Vinyl vinyl of course

(You can also Print and Cut depending on the image as well.  Go here to find out more about how to Print and Cut.)

(Go here to purchase your Designer Edition software if you don’t have it already!)

The more I use my Silhouette Cameo, the more I love love LOVE it!

Ashley Phipps is an Interior Designer, NCIDQ #25242, living in the Indianapolis area, and author of the blog Simply Designing.

You can follow Ashley at her blog Simply Designing, Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest.

okay…….today we are talking about getting the images to cut on your cameo

The silhouette studio has a wonderful amount of the cutest stuff…..

and a lot of these images come with multiple images (like these borders….so while you are spending a dollar..you are really only spending 25 cents an image)

but let’s pretend you can’t find exactly what you are looking for…..

i’m making a lego bag to hold my kid’s legos…and what i wanted is not what they had…

so i found an image on google…

see…there it is!!!

it shows up just like the picture…..to get the image you want to cut (or print) you are going to use one of my FAVORITE things! TRACE!

you click on the trace and push select trace area….

so if you just wanted the basic lines than this will work for you…

but if you want to adjust the thickness and keep the lines nice unclick the high pass filter.

you could click trace outer edge……which will give you this….

(after you click trace you will have to move your image off to see it)

now…trace has pros and cons….

it’s awesome (that’s a pro) and it can be used to get those images you can’t find….

you can even adjust your size after to make it bigger and larger…

another pro is you can still adjust the color/ pattern…

BUT a con…you can’t ungroup anything…

(which you can totally do if you buy it in the silhouette studio….

these pie shapes can be ungrouped and i can adjust the pie pieces to how i want them!

let’s say you wanted this love you (without the speech bubble)

alright…one of my commenter’s questions was how to put your own clipart into the silhouette studio library….. which is really easy…

you go to file in your studio

next month we are going to go over this commenter’s question…

“I would like to make a football helmet for my son’s room. I would like it to be 36 x 36. i know I can only make the width 12, what is your suggestion on making everything correct?  i am thinking I will have to use 2 pieces and try to connect it the best I can. Have you ever tried this before?”

stay tuned….

I have a bathroom we wanted to redo in a rock theme. I wanted to do something fun, yet different. I wanted to add something that popped. The bathroom is small, so I decided that a new shower curtain would be perfect. I looked everywhere for a curtain that would match and be perfect. I never found one. Then I got the idea that I can add vinyl! I ran to TJ Maxx and found a cheap, white shower curtain.

I used my Cricut Expression 2, Cricut Craft Room, “Musical Notes” (Craft Room Exclusive), and Heat Transfer Vinyl. My music notes are cut at 5 inches. I cut them out on a 12×24 mat with the blade setting on 3. Speed and pressure were set on medium.  Remember that when cutting iron on vinyl, you have flip all objects backwards. This makes the objects iron on correctly. Set iron to cotton blends. Always use a protective layer between vinyl and whatever you may be ironing it onto. Multi use paper sheets work best. If you don’t use anything, there’s a chance that the vinyl will melt. (yes, I have done this a time or two) Iron over each image a couple of times. Gently peel off backing. If the notes peel up, you can iron over until the vinyl is attached. It is so easy!

I love how this project turned out and I plan to use more vinyl in this bathroom! I hope you enjoy it as well!

Thanks for checking this out and make sure to head over to my blog for more fun ideas!

Candace, www.clearfielddesigns.wordpress.com

How many doctor’s offices have you been to that give you a free bag filled with advertisements that you probably won’t ever use? I just recently had a baby and got my fair share of these bags that I didn’t quite know what to do with. I couldn’t really throw a perfectly useful bag away, so I decided to give it a little facelift.

I had the opportunity of going to the Snap! Blogger Conference last month and wanted a way to showcase my blog name without having to talk to every, single person. Putting my name on a bag was the perfect way to do this! To make your own personalized bag you will need…

*Canvas tote

*Iron on vinyl (2 colors)

*Mulit use paper

*Cricut using Sure Cuts a Lot or Silhouette

*Felt

*Iron

First, you will want to measure your bag to see how large your background vinyl piece needs to be.

Go on your cutting program and create the background piece that you want. I wanted my website to be shown too so I put that in there too. Be sure to make the text flipped before cutting it out though. Having the vinyl cut out this way, will make it so the color of your bag shows through the holes that the text will be cut.

Now you wantto peel off the vinyl from your letters and iron your vinyl onto your bag. The vinyl is a little harder to get to stick to the canvas, so be sure to press really hard and to let it sit a little longer than you typically would for other materials.

Your bag will now have your background piece on it.

I have a heart in my logo and I wanted to have my logo look the same on my bag that it does on my blog. Because the bag had it’s own logo on it, I couldn’t have the heart cut out of the background, so I cut it out of felt and hot glued it onto my vinyl.

Now you want to cut out your letters for your bag. I made sure to measure how large I could have them on the background, then typed them in, flipped them, then cut it out.

Cut your vinyl words apart and lay them out where you will want them to be.

Be sure to use the multi use paper when ironing over the hot glued piece so that you don’t get hot glue on your iron.

One by one, iron your words where you want them to be.

I added felt flowers to give it a little flair and now I have a unique, personalized bag that is both stylish and totally affordable!

Happy Creating

McKenzie from Girl Loves Glam

I’ve been looking for a good excuse to layer Iron-on Vinyl for a while but just haven’t found the right project. But that all changed when my Mom and Dad agreed to do a Duathalong relay race with me! I decided to find some (semi) matching dri-fit shirts for us to wear on race day arn’t they cute?

 So its actually pretty simple the biggest hint  I have is always have the vinyl covered with something when ironing. The best option of course is the plastic sheet that comes attached but if that isn’t an option try the Multi Use Paper Sheets available in the T-Shirt Vinyl Section. Check out my video for a little more on how I made these cool shirts.

So go ahead and try it! I would love to see what you make layering iron on vinyl so if you have a project link it up in the comments below!

Oh and just for fun I made another cute back using vinyl as a paint stencil on the back. So check that out on my blog Life, Love, Green! 

• Ability to open, manipulate, and cut .svg files
• Rhinestone tools to convert designs into rhinestone templates and create your own rhinestone designs
• Sketch tools to convert designs into several styles of sketchable art
• Creative knife tools to allow you to clip designs using different patterns
• Enhanced eraser set to modify designs with more precision
• Built-in ruler and guide lines for precise alignment and drawing

I peeled the blue paper and then put it on the backer board.

And that’s it!!  It’s like a new shirt

Colors
Colors will vary by monitor, please consider the color name as well 

	White		Natural		Ash		Athletic Heather		Daffodil Yellow
	Yellow		Orange Sherbet		Light Sand		Sand		Pale Pink
	Candy Pink		Violet		Aquatic Blue		Light Blue		Stonewashed Blue
	Pistachio		Lime		Stonewashed Green		Medium Grey		Dark Heather Grey
	Charcoal		Black		Chamois Yellow		Lemon Yellow		Gold
	Orange		Texas Orange		Dusty Brown		Brown		Dark Chocolate Brown
	Fiery Red		Red		Rich Red		Cardinal		Athletic Maroon
	Sangria		Purple		Turquoise		Sapphire		Royal Blue
	Deep Marine		Carolina Blue		Ultramarine Blue		Colonial Blue		Steel Blue
	Navy		Dill Green		Kelly		Jade Green		Spruce
	Olive		Forest Green		Dark Green

Poll