Costume Contest

This is your last reminder before the big costume day, so dont forget to take pictures of you and your chickadees all dressed up and with tattoo designs on!!! There have been some great costumes using the temporary tattoo paper!  Send over your submissions to blog@silhouetteamerica.com.

Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween Bundle Rhinestones

It is so great to have new rhinestone colors!  I love the black and the orange is so festive!  These two colors are exclusive in our Halloween bundle.  I was thinking about blinging these tiny little pants with them for a fun halloween day outfit.  Here is the result.  Oooh so cute!

Shape:
pumpkin_boo_C02722_1

Don't miss out on all the great Silhouette Promotions we have going on this month.  Some offers end soon so hurry!

Clearance Shapes

Have you all been checking out the clearance shapes?? There are so many amazing shapes that get listed every week.  $.50 cents...really?  Amazing!  I thought these shapes were perfect for this picture! You need to snatch your faves up while they are on clearance.  Save them for a rainy day...or use them right now!

Clearance Shapes:

torn_notebook_snowflake_C00052_19547

circle_scribble_1850

phrase_go_2337

PS I am in love with the gorgeous leaf paper from Imaginisce!  So cute!

Free Download of the week

pumpkin_face_C02721_1

Our super great Jake contributed this fun Halloween shape for you to download today.  It is so much easier to tattoo a pumpkin rather than carve one...so here you go if you were looking for a fun face, just in time for Halloween!

Have a great day prepping for Halloween.

Monday Tutorial: Purchase and Import Shapes

Happy Monday everyone!  I have had a lot of first time Silhouette users ask for a beginning tutorial that would help them learn how to purchase and import shapes from the online store, to get started using the machine.  So I am giving you a step by step tutorial on how you do this.

Start by opening your Silhouette Studio software.  You will be given a document in landscape position and formatted for an 8.5"x11" page. To begin, you will see an icon on the lower left side-bar that looks like a "computer mouse."  Click on the icon.  It will immediately take you to the online store.

Now that you are in the online store, you may search using the sidebar buttons or you can search for a specific keyword.  In my case I am looking for a shape that says "spooky", so I typed in "spooky" in the search bar.
 

The online store will then bring up all shapes associated with the keyword "spooky."  You can either click on the "add to cart" button next to the shape you want or click on the shape itself to see the detail in the shape.  I have clicked on the shape to see an  upclose view of it.

I am now going to add it to my cart by clicking on the "add to cart button."  You will see the "cart icon up in the top right corner.  Click on the "cart" button.

This will now show you what is in your cart and will give you the option to remove or checkout.  Because this is the shape I want, I chose to click on "checkout."

It will ask for your password if you are not logged in.  So plug that baby in and it will download your shape to your library.  You will see the bar stating that you shape is downloading.  You can type in your search bar your shape keyword in my case "spooky"  and the shape will pop up (depending on your keyword, other shapes may come up also).

Double click on you shape and Silhouette Studio automatically imports it onto your document. *Poof*  You are ready to re-size your shape and start cutting!

For more information on how to use your Silhouette and the new software, take a look at our free printable online classes. 

On this card I have used two of the items from our Halloween bundle, black rhinestones and black fuzzy vinyl.  You have to get your hands on some of the black rhinestones.  They are beautiful and so fun!  I need them for my everyday use not just Halloween.  They will be a great accent to tons of my projects! They are only offered in the Halloween bundle, so you gotta order one up.  Also, just a little plug for the Black fuzzy vinyl...many of you have asked what it looks and feels like, in one word...velvet.  It has a short soft pile that feels oh so nice!

 Shapes:
quaking_aspen_background_C00841_18816

Halloween Shapes:

spooky_C20091005002004_19210
 PS. Get any of your Halloween shapes at a discounted price of $.75 cents today through November 6th!

Costume Contest

This is just your friendly neighborhood reminder about our costume contest going on right now through November 1st.  We have uploaded some fun designs to use as facepaint in the store.  You can use keywords to find them such as costume or facepaint.  But you can choose any shape in the store to work with your costume. For a tutorial on how to create your own custom designs using the shapes from our store click on this link here.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

I am also super excited to announce the winner of the amazing Imaginisce giveaway!  Everyone has been great and it was so fun to get to know the inner workings of your creative projects! Thank you to all that entered!

Winner:  Survivor Diane
Now - what would I do with them? I am a breast cancer survivor - I would be greedy and just enjoy that pink stuff! I have a brand new silhouette sitting in the box - I think I am scared to fail - so I have yet to open it. I would use the prize package to motivate me to open and get busy.

Welcome to the most amazing world of Silhouette Diane!  I am so excited for you to find your newest love!  Trust me you can do this, cut the tape off the box and open that baby up! 

Congratulations friend!  Please email me at blog@silhouetteamerica.com with all your contact address including the mailing and email address you would like to be contacted through! Thank you for entering to win!

Blog Swap

This Contest is now closed: thank you for all of your entries!

We teamed up with Imaginisce to kick off this holiday season with a look at their fab new fall and christmas lines.  They are so darling...the sweet little woodland creatures and the colors are to die for in their apple cider line and their christmas cottage collection has the perfect mix of reds and greens and icy blues...yum!  I just got shivers thinking about it!

Their patterns have been fun and so versatile to work with!  The holidays are here...YIPPEE!

These are some projects I designed using their papers, prepare yourself, I'm telling you darling!!!

I just needed to put a plug in for this lovely little tool to the left.  If you like rhinestones and want to set individually this is a must have tool.  It was so fast and so easy!  Yes I'm in love!


Because of this blog swap, we are both doing giveaways, you wont want to miss it.  This is how you enter to win these fabulous prizes!

1. Visit the Imaginisce blog & Imaginisce facebook and of course become a follower and tell them silhouette sent you (I mean why wouldnt you?? right? too cute to pass up).

2. Post a comment on any of your favorite social media sites ie: your blog, facebook, twitter. Hype is good!

3. Come back here come back here and tell us what you would do with their giveaway! 

I will be announcing the winner of the imaginisce giveaway tomorrow, so you don't have long. You can comment all day and all night, so hurry get on it...you need their giveaway! Good Luck!

Ps. We are giving away some goodies on their blog too!  Enter to win!

Halloween Bundle

We have put together a super fun Halloween bundle that will help you finish all those little projects you have going on this spooky season. You can purchase it in the web store for $29.99. Your kit will include:

1 Orange Vinyl
1 Fuzzy Black Vinyl
1 Metallic Sketch Pens set
2 Rhinestone Template Sheets
2 Rhinestone Boards
2 Rhinestone Transfer Sheets
1 Clear Rhinestone 10ss pkg.
1 Black Rhinestone 10ss pkg.
1 Orange Rhinestone 10ss pkg.

We brought in the Black and orange rhinestones for this seasonal offer and I couldn't be more excited.  I have been dying to get my hands on some black rhinestones!!! What do you think? Aren't they lovely? You can also get this bundle for FREE!!! if you order $100 worth of product. Truly if that weren't enough, we are offering 10% off all products in the store from now until October 31.  Use promo code: Halloween at check out.

 It was so nice to be able to have all of my Halloween elements in one package!  I created this card by using a black piece of cardstock.  I then took the white sketch pen and sketched the web shape onto the paper.

Once that was complete I added the bottom white strip of cardstock and added the "trick or treat" shape to it.  I cut the trick and treat out of the orange vinyl.  The "or" was cut from the fuzzy black vinyl.  I looooove our fuzzy vinyl!  It is the perfect little accent to give some dimension. 

Last but certainly not least the cutey cute little rhinestone spider.  This was my fave, because again you know I have been wanting these black rhinestones!!! It was great to turn this spider into something special.  I used all three rhinestones to create this little guy.

I first started by arranging the black rhinestones into place with the brush onto his body.  Then I used the Pickmeup to place the clear rhinestones on the "spider string" (ok what is that really called, there has to be a term...anyone???).  For a little detail, I removed some of the middle rhinestones and added the orange rhinestones.  The Pickmeup makes it so easy to play with the rhinestones.

Shapes:
creepy_spider_web_C20090928171608_19210
spider_rhinestone_C02661_1

Clearance Shape:
trick_or_treat_C20090907230548_18816

FREE Download of the week

skeleton_rib_cage_C02697_1

I think the Halloween shirts that have the skeleton rib cage and heart on them are so darling  So, I decided to make a shape just like it.  They are so hilarious!  Now you can make one of your very own! I used the Flocked White and the Bright Pink Heat Transfer for this shirt.  I thought it would be so cute to make my son one with a green heart!...oooh cute!

 

I hope you all have a great Tuesday and don't forget to sign up for the amazing discounts and unlimited downloads, with the Platinum Unlimited Subscription offer we have going on right now.

For those of you who cant get enough!  We have and unlimited subscription offer for a limited time only. 
Hurry on over and check it out in the online store!

Monday Tutorial: How to make a custom print and cut

I have been receiving a lot of questions on how to make a print and cut and actually have it "print and cut".  So I thought it would be a good idea to teach you how, with our current contest going on.  This way you will be able to use any of the shapes from the store to work with your Halloween costumes!

This might be a redundant tutorial from others I have done, but I am in hopes that it will be thorough and understandable to get you off on the right foot and creating lots of print and cuts.

The first thing you will want to do is, import your shape from your library.  It will automatically come into your document.

Because I am making this a tattoo for a costume, I am wanting to cut it into a few pieces to allow for a nice placement.  My shape is already grouped together so I will use the knife tool and click on the first point I am wanting to cut and drag it to the end point of the cut. You will be able to click on your shape and drag the "pieces away from each other.  They will split at the knife line.

You can see in this picture that I split the butterfly in the middle and at the two sides allowing me to have 4 pieces created from the wings.

My next step is to ungroup the wing sections so that I can fill each individual piece with a color.  I used the gradient fill because it adds nice dimension to the print and cuts.

Once I am done filling in all the ungrouped pieces I will select the entire image and group together.  That way non of the little pieces will move as I resize to fit the face.  You can also resize before you start any of this process, I just like to resize once I have it just how I want it.

Now we are ready to add the registration marks.  These marks will print onto your paper allowing the sensor in the Silhouette to detect and align perfectly with the print and cut.

There is one final step you need to check before you print.  Because there are so many pieces in this shape I want to make sure that the outline of the butterfly is the only thing that gets cut.  The Silhouette automatically defaults to cut all the lines in the shape.  So you will need to click on the cut line settings and change the cut lines from "cut" to "cut edge".  Again this will allow only the outline of the wings to be cut out. You are now ready to print your document.

Some of you may need to change your printer settings before you print.  You can do this when you click on the printer button.  It will take you to a pop-up box that will allow you to change the properties of the printer.  I chose to use the photo quality print option and I also needed to change my paper size to 8.5 x 11.  So I made all of my adjustments and then clicked print.

Now that the document is printed, place your paper on the mat (carrier sheet) at the lined markings on the mat. You will then need to "feed" your mat and printed paper into the Silhouette.  Make sure your Silhouette says "load w/ carrier".  This will feed the mat into the Silhouette a little farther than if you were to simply "load media".  The mat will feed into the Silhouette just above the registration marks.

You will need to click on the "detect registrations marks".  The Silhouette will read the marks and come back to its resting place.  I like to have my cut settings at a speed of 3.  The slower setting allows the machine to have a more concise cut.

Once that is completed you can click on "cut" and watch the show. And there you have it, a custom print and cut!  Now you are ready to print and cut until your little hearts content!