Can you believe that June is almost gone? It has gone by very quickly for our family!
Fourth of July
Well, here I am always thinking about the next holiday and what SVG files I should create. Feeling patriotic? Great! I have just the thing for you. These little name cards would be great for labeling food at your great big 4th of July party!
Do you have any family recipes that only come out on the 4th of July? Our family has one that we like to call the “Fourth of July Dip”. Really, it is just a delicious 7-layer dip that covers a huge serving platter. I’m sure that the recipe is no secret. However, the dip is delicious and is rarely seen in our family except on the 4th of July.
4th of July Name Cards
So, what do you think of these cute little cards? I am partial to them. Since I like my projects to be as simple as possible, these cards only have 3 pieces – one for each color.
Free 4th of July SVG file download
And now, of course, the download. Please enjoy! As always, this is for your personal use only and I love to see pictures if you end up using it!
Note that the download will give you an SVG file which you can import into your software and ungroup to get each color separately.
Also, be sure to check out my fun STARS SVG file. Let me know how this one cuts if you try it out!
Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Fourth of July!
Well, Father’s Day is almost upon us again! Time goes by so fast it is hard to keep up with things!
Previous Father’s Day Card
Take a look at the card I made a couple years ago. My dad was always fixing my toys, working on a project, or just being a handy man. He even built me doll bunk beds one year!
Now, I made a new version! Complete with a the bones of the template in case you want to make your own with a different Father’s Day theme.
Father’s Day Fishing
While I do not fish and no one I know fishes, these fishing images were just too cute. Plus, Father’s Day makes me think of dads and fishing!
So, for all of you with fishermen in your lives, this card overlay svg file is for you. I haven’t had time to test cut it out, so let me know if you run into any snags.
Well, what about your non-fisherman father?
I have you covered! If you can think of a hobby or theme that he likes, put it on his Father’s Day Card! Just download the empty template and start loading it up with files relating to your theme.
Go ahead, go crazy! Just find anything you can that is adorable and relates to your theme. Size it, spin it, and put in place. That is all there is to it.
As a tip, just make sure that your images touch the inner and outer borders and then “union” the paths. Look up tutorials on this if you don’t know how to, or let me know if you really get stuck.
Welcome to my website and today’s journey through my hand lettered artwork project! Have you tried hand lettering? With all the amazing hand lettering on Pinterest and Instagram, I just couldn’t stay away. Such pretty lettering ought to be admired by imitation, in my opinion!
Well, my hand lettering led to water brush pens and watercolors, which led in turn to watercolor doodles. Then, I saw this on Instagram. Watercolor hexagons! Perfect, I thought, I can usually make patterns and I love playing with the colors. Of course, I didn’t attempt the project free-handed, like the lady I saw as my inspiration. We’ll save that for a later date.
Instead, I drew nice little evenly spaced guidelines for myself. I used the materials listed below. These are Amazon affiliate links, but buy wherever you like! I generally buy new supplies at the craft stores with coupons. I love coupons.
Very, very relaxing, at least for me! Try to leave a little border between the hexagons. I found that it helped to put a dot where each corner ought to go and then connect the dots. You can also add a little extra color to the hexagon while it is still wet to get some fun variation!
Adding a Hand Lettered Word, Saying, or Sentiment
I don’t know if it is a craze right now or not, but hand lettering is highly addicting! For my piece of craft room artwork, I thought “Create” would be an apt word to add. I used my Pentel water brush again to letter this on another piece of watercolor paper with the plan to cut it out and put it on top of my hexagon masterpiece.
As a sidenote, I have also been playing with brush markers for hand lettering practice. Take a look at my Instagram feed if you want to see what I have been up to in my spare time. Here are the pens I have been playing with (there are many more that I want to try as well!):
Hand Lettering Tools I have been playing with lately
After it dried, I cut the watercolor paper down a bit and stuck it on my PixScan mat for my Silhouette Cameo to cut out.
After several tries, it finally registered and cut. While it went through and cut smoothly, it was off a bit. I took it off and played around with it a bit on top of the hexagons.
It would have been okay, but I didn’t really like the look of it on top of the hexagons anyhow. So, I scrapped it, and kept just the outline.
When in doubt, use Glitter!
Glitter to the rescue! I found this lovely piece of VERY THICK glitter paper in a nice dark gray. It looked like it would go well, so I set about to cut out my lettering. Does anyone know if this particular glitter cardstock is thicker than normal?
I have not previously cut out glitter cardstock. Looking in the materials list on my silhouette, I found and choose the “glitter cardstock” settings. After running the file through the cutter, I pulled it out. Sadly, it was not cut all the way through.
So, I stuck it back in the Silhouette Cameo for another double-cut run through. Took it out, and it was still not cut through. This time I checked my blade to find it filled with glitter.
After cleaning it out, I upped the blade depth a bit and stuck it back in. Almost this time! Cleaned out the blade again. Fourth time was a charm and it looked great!
Persistence paid off and I was very thankful that it stayed aligned despite its many trips in and out of the machine. I then did a quick offset and cut a second one out of another piece of white cardstock. Isn’t it pretty?
Look at how pretty it looks on top of the hexagons! I am thrilled that the 4 times through the Silhouette Cameo paid off. Just in case you didn’t put this together, that is 8 cutting passes since it was set to double cut!
Now, it just needed a little extra depth. For this, I turn once again to my large supply of cork scraps. Use anything with a bit of thickness, I just have a lot of cork scraps lying around from making coasters!
In fact, if you need some coasters, please head over to my Etsy shop and take a look. I welcome custom orders if there is something in particular you are looking for!
Except, this time, I just sprayed the cork on both sides with spray adhesive. That seemed to do the trick nicely! Also, I didn’t get any photos of this, but I adhered the glitter cardstock to the offset white cardstock cut.
Almost Done! Now just position your lovely hand lettering on your lovely hand painted background
Beautiful! All set to frame.
A nice little glamour shot of my framed artwork next to my Silhouette Cameo.
And, if you were waiting for this, I’m sorry for the long post. Here is the FREE HAND LETTERED CUTTING FILE! Just click the link below and the free SVG file should download.
Hello to all you of you mothers out there! This image of a mother and baby is beautiful, don’t you think. I really want to make it into a cutting file, of course, but haven’t captured it well enough in my attempts yet. I will share my results though if I do succeed!
Good news if you create your own cards – there is still time to get that Mother’s Day card out of your head and onto the paper for your own mother. Especially if she lives nearby!
Also, though a bit more somber, I wanted to acknowledge all the bereaved mothers out there too. There are many women who are mothers, but do not have a child to hold. This day may hold its own meaning for them as well. Please think of them this week and don’t be afraid to say something to acknowledge them and their pain. At least, this is what I have learned from an article I read recently shared by a friend who knows this pain!
Hand Lettered
On a lighter note, here is the pretty little watercolor lettering page I started this process with. Just recently I have started playing with watercolors. I just started, so don’t judge too harshly, but I am having a lot of fun! And, I am also having fun with hand lettering.
More particularly, I have discovered the water brush pen! It is a pen. It is a brush. It is full of water. Awesome.
If you want to play with one, these are the two I have currently. I think I like the Pentel one better, but I’m not sure.
Simply moisten some water color ink, dip your water brush pen in and have fun.
Mom Mother Mother’s Day on the Screen
Next, I traced my lettering in Adobe Illustrator. In the past, I have used Inkscape forthis and it works well too (and is free!). There are plenty of tutorials on this around, but I may add my own at some point as well. Here is what I ended up with in Silhouette Studio at the end of the day.
Once I cut it out, I realized that the “HAPPY” and “DAY” parts of my lettering were too tiny for me to hassle with. So, I opted to just hand-letter those words in on my final cards.
Mother’s Day Card Construction Time!
Then, construct your card. Many of you, I’m sure, have more card making experience than I. However, a few layers, a little texture from my embossing folders, and these sentiments made for a pretty nice looking card.
I also cut out a few of the butterflies that came with the Silhouette Cameo (I think).
Thought I wanted this in silver, but I changed my mind. Sharpie to the rescue!
Here is my finished product and the cutting file for the sentiments too!
I made two cards. One for me to send, and one for my husband. Who knows if my mother-in-law would get one otherwise? Plus, she loves butterflies.
A mommy duck and ducklings just screams Spring! I am so glad that Spring has arrived and the flowers and birds have come to stay a while.
We had a little yellow duckling once. Sadly, it was a part of our failed run with guinea hens and a duck. Apparently, we have a hungry m
ink nearby good enough to weasel in almost anywhere.
You can see the cute little results. You can also see my first experiment with watercolor for a background. While it looks nice enough, I think I have significant room for improvement!
Sentiment?
As of today, they are ready to go on cards but haven’t been assembled yet.
What sentiment would you attach to these? Is there something nice and springy? Or perhaps a simple “hello”? I may try to incorporate it into a Mother’s Day card.
Does anyone here do anything for earth day? Sadly, I really don’t. However, it was a great way to come up with new ideas for SVG files. This is just a quick trace of a nice looking silhouette of the globe. It would look great on a travel scrapbook page or perhaps on an Earth Day t-shirt!
In case you are interested, this is the original clip art file! I didn’t change it much. First, I did a quick trace in Adobe Illustrator. Second, I simplified it and smoothed the corners just a tad. Lastly, I widened the top line a bit to make the finished product a bit more sturdy!
What have you made recently? Show me your projects, I love to see them!!
Hope is what I feel as though I need lately. Sometimes life is heavy whether you have good reasons or not. As Easter approaches, it reminds me that there is a lot to appreciate and a wonderful source for true joy and true hope. However, it can often be hard to internalize it!
While I was going to create a lovely lettering file to give you a very nice free svg file download, I found one lovelier than I could make already in existence!
Well, I HOPE you enjoy this free svg file download. It is a beautiful hand lettered expression and I would love to see it framed on my wall in the near future! Hoping all is well for you and yours, enjoy this free svg file download. Alright, I am done with the hope puns. For now.
And, while you are here, stop by and get this adorable free duckling svg file. This one also need a frame. It most definitely needs a frame.
Do you love a custom silhouette as much as I do? I recently made some artwork for my girls’ playroom and received a lot of questions on how I did it. This article won’t go into too much depth as the process varies remarkably depending on the photo that you start with.
DIY Custom Silhouette from Photo
A crisp, clean silhouetted photo with nothing in the background will be much easier to create a custom silhouette cutting file from than one that has a lot going on.
First, take a look at the two photographs that I started with. In the first one, I caught an adorable moment of my husband and daughters holding hands. In the other, I have a mostly silhouetted view of my girls running through a tunnel at a playground.
Can you guess which one was easier to convert into a custom silhouette svg cutting file? Yep, the one on the right. While the second image is already well on its way to being a silhouette in its own right, the image of the three holding hands has a lot going on in the background. When there is a lot in the background, you aren’t going to be able to trace the image to get a nice crisp outline. So, this is the first thing you need to resolve if you want to get a nice svg cutting file from your photo.
First Step: Edit your image in some variety of Photo Software
While I just signed up for a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud and am having a great time with it, the cost may be prohibitive for some. If you don’t have a go to image editing software, I highly recommend GIMP. It is a free software and can do quite a lot – almost as much as Photoshop if you know how to work it.
As I mentioned before, it is hard to give explicit directions for this step as it can vary so much between images. However, the goal is always the same. You need to make your image into a black and white image with lots of contrast and you need to remove as much of the background noise and distraction as you can.
Here is what my images looked like after I had played around with them for a while and cleaned them up as best as I could. Because the one with my two girls in the tunnel was a cleaner image to start with, it was already starting to look like a cutting file. On the left, however, the image with the three holding hands still needed a lot of work.
Second Step: Trace the Image
There are several ways to approach this next step. You can use the built in trace function in Silhouette Studio, however I typically prefer to use Inkscape. Here is a demonstration of using the trace function in Silhouette Studio to produce your custom silhouette image. As you can see, the result is quite messy and would require quite a lot of processing to make it as nice as my final draft.
Now, here is a different way to generate your custom silhouette using Inkscape. Inkscape is a free software available for download and is quite versatile. Notice how the resulting custom silhouette trace is much cleaner. This means there will be a whole lot less cleaning up by hand to do and it will take a lot less time. Remember, your time is valuable! In addition, I have also found Inkscape to be much more responsive and kind to me when I edit cutting files node by node.
If you look closely in the GIF above, you will see that the “Trace Bitmap” function has lots of options. Take your time and play around with these features. For my image, the “Brightness Steps” option seemed to work the best. I then separated the layers it gave me and picked the best one. I didn’t take the time to go into detail regarding this feature, but there are lots of tutorials on it already if you poke around. Here is one that I found. And, another good site if you want to learn more about Inkscape.
Adobe Illustrator also works with SVG files and will probably be something I play around with more in the future. In the meantime, please enjoy these GIF images and feel free to ask me any more detailed questions you may have regarding the process.
Third Step: Clean it Up
While this step is the most tedious, it is also very crucial to getting a nice clean cut. Basically, you need to go into your traced cutting file and do a few things. Let me see if I can list them out.
Delete nodes that you don’t want (you can see there were a lot of cluttered points on my images above).
Connect the paths where the trace didn’t get it quite right. For me, I needed to reconnect the girls’ ponytails to their heads!
Alter any shapes that seem a bit off if you desire.
With some practice and a LOT of patience, you can end up with a file that looks something like this one:
Custom Silhouette of My Girls
Click to download FREE SVG file.
Fourth Step: Cut it Out
Finally, we get to the fun part! Now that you have your file all ready to go, open it up in Silhouette Studio. I have the designer edition and can open SVG files directly. If you do not, you can save your file as a DXF from Inkscape and import it from there. As a caution, I do warn that I have personally had struggles with this method and recommend you read my experience with it before you invest too much time into trying to cut out your files.
The file with the custom silhouette of my two girls that I show above I ended up separating into two cuts. My other file, with them holding hands, only took one cut.
Since their playroom is all decked out in pink and green, I used a pretty pink 12″ x 12″ cardstock I had on hand. While this playroom has been a long time in process, it just keeps getting more exciting (in my humble opinion, of course). Feel free to check it out.
For the two layer cut, I cut the tunnel background into the pink layer and cut the girls out of the white cardstock. On the other cut I just used the pink as a solid background.
Once you get your images cut out to your liking, weed them and get them looking just right. Take a minute to sit back and admire them! If you made it this far, congratulations! I know this is a long tedious process, but you can get such fabulous custom silhouette results!
Fifth Step: Frame It!
Don’t let your beautiful silhouette just sit there on your craft table. Get it off the table and into a frame! I promise, this part is really no so hard. You will need:
Something to add dimension behind the cutout. I used scraps of Cork that I had on hand.
Adhesive I used a tape roller from the scrapbooking section of the craft store.
Decide where you want your background. Mine was slightly smaller than the frame, but larger than the mat. In order to ensure it wouldn’t slip around, I adhered it centered to the example insert they always have in the frame. Next, add your cork (or something with similar dimension) to the back of your custom silhouette cutout. Then, adhere it to the background. Center your art in the frame and close it up. It is really that simple.
Father and Daughters finally in their frame!
My sweet little girls all settled in their frame.
Well, I suppose that is all I have for today. Have you made any custom silhouette artwork? I would love to see it! Oh, and please excuse the quantity of social media images that follow, I really can’t put down my new CC apps!
Did you know that it was National Tile Day? Neither did I, until I was browsing around for inspiration. Apparently, today is the very first annual celebration of this newly designated National Tile Day. Tiles! Well, I really love tiles. In fact, making tile coasters is something that I have been doing for a while. Using travertine tiles and some cork, they can really come out quite beautifully. Just recently, I made a set for each of the households in our family for Christmas using vinyl and my Silhouette Cameo. Take a look:
While you can order these in bulk or pick them up at the hardware store, here is an Amazon link to tiles similar to the ones I used.
Anyhow, I thought I would find some beautiful images of tiles and make some new stencil svg cutting files. And so, I did just that. Here is the image I found for inspiration and tracing the free svg stencils.
Aren’t these tile gorgeous? While I have linked the picture to the photo’s origin, if you would like to instead use the free svg stencil files that I have made, just hang on. In due time, I will most definitely be making some new tile coasters with these designs. Color choice is going to be difficult though! Whenever I enact this fabulous plan, I will be sharing it here with you.
Here are the free SVG and PNG file downloads. Enjoy, and happy national tile day!
First, lets drive straight to the point. While the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition of the Silhouette software has lots of extra features, the feature that was most alluring to me was the support for the SVG file type.
The magic of the SVG file type.
What does SVG mean? Well, I can tell you! Scalable Vector Graphics, or SVG files are fabulous and awesome in so many ways. Basically, instead of recording pixels of a picture, this format saves points and directions. The combination of a point and a directions is called a vector (sorry for the technical jargon, but I was a mathematics major!). So, this format saves a bunch of vectors instead of pixels.
And, why would we care about this? Because it makes the files SCALABLE. That means that you can make them any size you like and every detail will be the same. Unlike a jpg file, which has a set resolution, SVG files do not lose anything when you make them gigantic. Click the image if you want to read more about these awesome files.
SVG Files and Silhouette Studio
Moving on, we now know that SVG files are awesome, but why do we care about Silhouette Studio Designer Edition and its ability to use them?
Firstly, we care because there are millions of free and cheap SVG files out there for us to use. Free files are awesome.
Secondly, we care because it is easy to make and save our own files in the SVG format. I use Inkscape, a free software, to create and edit files. Inkscape is free and has tons of features. While it can save in DXF and other formats, it defaults to saving in SVG format because this seems to be the predominant file type for vector graphics.
Thirdly, we care because the basic edition of Silhouette Studio is horrible at importing files! Having tried to get away with the free version for years, I can truly say that it is terrible when trying to import DXF files. It can do it, but the results are never pretty.
Why I chose not to buy Designer Edition for several years.
Considering all its fun features, why would I still refuse to purchase it? I went without it for at least 3 years with my Silhouette Cameo. Obviously, I didn’t want to shell out the $50 for it. Feeling as though my technical savvy should allow me a way out, I stubbornly refused to buy Silhouette Studio Designer Edition.
Can you avoid buying DE and still make your own files? Yes.
Can you avoid buying DE and still get a lot out of your machine? Yes.
Can you avoid buying DE and still be efficient? No, not really.
Workarounds exist for almost anything you would want to do which requires DE. The main task that I needed to achieve was using SVG files that I found online with my Silhouette Cameo. For this purpose, I learned how to use Inkscape to edit SVG files and export them as DXF files, a file type that the basic edition of Silhouette Studio IS able to import. This method worked for me. I felt as though I had gotten around buying the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition and didn’t have any need for it. Why bother getting it when I could simply open the files I needed in Inkscape and then save them as DXF? Well, now I know why.
My Tipping Point
What finally tipped me over the edge was working and struggling with a file I needed to cut out. Opening this particular file in Inkscape, it looked very nice. There weren’t very many points. It was a nice clean file. Now, all I needed was to cut it out. Saving it as a DXF file is easy in Inkscape. There are a few different options, but nothing too bad. I saved it and opened it in Silhouette Studio. The software cringed, and spun, and stuttered.
Finally, it opened and had my shape with what appeared to be millions of points. Trying to work with it, I told the software to simplify the shape. It obligingly rearranged the points for me. Still millions of points in the file. I thought I would just ignore this and cut it out. Wrong. However the DXF format or the Silhouette software had mangled my file cause it to be a gigantic file size that kept getting lost when I tried sending it to cut.
Frustrated, I started looking for deals on DE. Finding a pretty good deal, I took the plunge and got a code to upgrade. I upgraded the software – it didn’t even need to download anything. Those sneaky people, I thought, they include everything in the original download but it is sitting there locked away! Well, I tried it out anyway.
Returning to the saga of my cut file, I pulled the original SVG file open easily in my shiny new Silhouette Studio Designer Edition software. It looked just as simple and beautiful as it had in Inkscape. Crossing my fingers, I sent it to the machine and it cut it out within seconds. Clean, simple, easy. Everything I had wanted. Why, I thought, had I wasted so much time with my workarounds?
Silhouette Designer Edition Features
Features abound in the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition. Take a look at this article on the Silhouette School Blog if you want a more in depth look at some of these features.
Sketch Pen Options
Rhinestone Features
Shadows
Eraser Tool Options
Shear Tool
Select By Color or Line Color
Ruler and Grid Improvements
Nesting objects (for optimizing your materials)
Transfer Properties from one object to another
Easily fill shapes with photos
Import SVG files
These are the most notable changes you will see when you upgrade. One notable feature that is still missing from the software is the ability EXPORT SVG files. Having researched this a little, it seems that it was a feature in previous iterations of the Designer Edition software but has been removed. Presumably, they want people to keep their files in their own proprietary format. This is disappointing to me.
However, I am still glad that I purchased it. Once you have made an investment in the machine, it is worth the small percentage of that investment to also invest in the Designer Edition of the software. As of today, I am seeing it on Amazon for as low as $25 and I know there are other sales and deals on it from time to time as well.
Unexpected benefits of Design Edition
Unexpectedly, once I unlocked the Designer Edition, the whole software package seemed to run more quickly and smoothly. While I don’t know if this is intentional or just a byproduct of the way they designed the unlocking mechanism, it is a bonus. I truly feel like the Designer Edition is what should be included with the machine and since it isn’t, you should just chalk it up to part of the cost of the machine. Basically, I recommend pretending that it did come with the machine!
For me, the improvements to the program’s performance were most notable when editing the nodes of a path. Previously, when I tried to edit nodes in Silhouette Studio my machine churned and protested and it was incredibly, painfully slow. Now, it will comply with my desires. This alone has saved me a lot of time. In addition, the ability to import SVG files cleanly gives my files fewer nodes and the cut out swiftly.
Problems with DXF import
Additionally, I was never satisfied with using the DXF format for importing my files to Silhouette Studio. Inkscape is capable of outputting files in this format, and while it works, it doesn’t work well. Somehow, during the process of the conversion, seemingly millions of new points are added. Let me show you a comparison.
On the left, the relatively simple SVG import. On the right, the unnecessarily complicated DXF import.
Above is a file I designed in Inkscape. You can download it here if you are interested. While the image on the left may have a few unnecessary nodes, it has a manageable number of nodes. On the right is what Silhouette Studio gave me when I imported the DXF version. The number of nodes is so high you can’t even see them distinctly. When sending these files to cut out on your machine, each node is communicated to your machine. Now, you should be able to see why the SVG version is so superior. It will take a fraction of the time to send it over and cut it out. In terms of time savings, the benefits were immediately obvious.
Why I stopped providing free DXF files
As you can see, the DXF files were simply not doing the job. They were unwieldy and a time sink. Finally, I decided to give up on them. Not wanting others to lose time or have trouble with one of these files, I have also removed them from this site. In the unlikely case that you should want the DXF version of one of my files, please download the SVG and Inkscape. You can then open the SVG file and convert it in Inkscape. However, your results will likely be similar to mine.
Conclusion
After all these considerations, I am very glad I finally got the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition. Probably, I should have gotten it sooner. If you use free SVG files from online or create your own, it is well worth the time savings you will reap. Your time is valuable and don’t forget it!
Kabram Krafts is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Welcome! Kabram Krafts is now selling premium SVG files at kabramkrafts.com as well as on Etsy. Dismiss
After it dried, I cut the watercolor paper down a bit and stuck it on my PixScan mat for my Silhouette Cameo to cut out.
and am having a great time with it, the cost may be prohibitive for some. If you don’t have a go to image editing software, I highly recommend 
As a caution, I do warn that I have personally had struggles with this method and recommend you 
th them holding hands, only took one cut.
that I had on hand.
of the Silhouette software has lots of extra features, the feature that was most alluring to me was the support for the SVG file type.
. Obviously, I didn’t want to shell out the $50 for it. Feeling as though my technical savvy should allow me a way out, I stubbornly refused to buy 
