Birthday invites

Made these invites for my kids birthday party. It was a quick job as I didn't have as much time as I would've wanted. Plus my kids didn't have too many demands!

The numbers are cut using Silhouette Portrait. The stars are from a Lawn fawn stamp set and the hippo is from MFT Happy hippos stamp set. Colored using copics. Added glitter using Wink of Stella pen.

Iron-on vinyl t-shirts

DH was participating in STP and we were going to welcome him in Portland at the finish line. I wanted to make t-shirts for all three of us. With some designing in Silhouette Studio, I came up with the above design. I used the Circuit iron-on vinyl since that was the one available in my color. Kids t-shirts are from Old Navy and mine from Jo-ann.
Here's a photo of my t-shirt

 I was very happy with the t-shirts! It did take a lot of ironing - simply followed the instructions on the package.

Mother’s day card

Another mother’s day card! Had so much fun making it! Love love love the multi-step stamping stamps from Altenew! I have used this peony bouquet for anything and everything! Cut out the sentiment using Portrait. Used distress inks for stamping.

Then covered the flowers in shimmer usking wink of stella pen. A closer look below.

Supplies: Altenew Peony bouquet stamp set, Distress Inks, Neenah solar white, Silhouette Portrait, WInk of Stella pen.

Sending tons of love

I made this background as one of my first projects with Portrait 2. It looks much better IRL! Colored the hippo and hearts with copics and then added stickles to the hearts. Popped them up on foam stickers. Pretty simple!

Supplies: DCWV Glitzy stack, MFT Happy Hippos stamp set, Copics, Portrait 2, Stickles

More peony bouquet

After making the previous card, I wanted to do some more with Peony bouquet. I feel it’s a very versatile set. You can do whatever you want with it – do multi-step stamping or stamp the outlines and color them; color them with copics, pencils or zig clean color markers; emboss them; color with pastel colors or brights. The options are endless for the kind of result that you want. All these options is what made me want to do more with that stamp. Something different every time.

I stamped the flowers and leaves with some masking on watercolor paper. Initially I tried to watercolor using zig clean color markers. So I would wet the area that I was going to color and then drop the color using the markers. The big flower in the center is colored using that. While now I like that look more than the other flowers, when I was coloring it, it didn’t feel so. Also, somehow that kind of coloring wasn’t much fun for me – maybe because I wasn’t liking the results so much. The rest of the flowers I colored in the traditional way where I would color the darkest areas first and then using a watercolor brush spread the color to the lighter areas. I did have a lot of fun doing that! For the leaves I just blended the light green and dark green.

The flowers are covered in glitter using the Wink of Stella pen. The sentiment was cut using Portrait 2 and then covered with Glossy accents. A close look at the glitter and the glossy sentiment. Loved everything about this card ad just perfect for my mom or mom-in-law! I do want to add “love you” above the MOM – probably a handwritten message and then it’s good for either Mother’s day or a birthday card!

Leave your shoes at the door sign

Using this quote that I found online I created this design. The font for “Shoes and Worries” is “master of break”. The flowers and leaves are a free design that came with the silhouette portrait. The design is cut in vinyl. For the flowers and leaves, I got 12”X12” loose vinyl from Michaels. I used a clear grid transfer sheet to transfer the design. Overall it was quite simple! We hung it outside, next to the door, with a shoe rack below it.

Dining room vinyl wall art

For a long time our dining room wall was sans any decor because we had removed the old ones and hadn’t had the time to make anything new. I’d sold my Zing and was still waiting to get the Portrait. Once I had it, I ran into some hiccups. That meant a few calls to the customer support. The issue is still not resolved yet – the autoblade doesn’t work – but I can at least use it as a ratchet blade.

I’m so pleased with this vinyl art – not only did I cut it myself using a silhouette but I also designed it myself! Actually, I had full intention to buy a design so I started searching and I found this beautiful saying; but the design was very simple. Then I came across this etsy shop and they had such beautiful vinyl wall art. However,  they didn’t have a saying that I liked. So I thought why not try to create one on my own. With some dingbat searches and using the Silhouette Studio I was able to design this.

Cutting was another challenge because as you can see it’s much wider than what Portrait can cut. I searched for some instructions online to see how I could cut designs like these. The main take away was to cut the design into multiple parts using a knife and most importantly, use the shift key when using the knife so that you get a straight line. This is very important – I learnt it the hard way so learn it from me Following the instructions I cut the design horizontally into around 7-8” wide sections. Then cut out each section using the vinyl roll (and not the mat).

After cutting, putting it together on the wall took me around 2 hours or so because I had to make sure everything aligned well and that the wordings were straight. So glad that I got a clear grid transfer sheet. Can you believe it that grateful was cut right in the middle???? It was so difficult to align all those thin curves together! I’m glad it looks fine now! I bought my vinyl and transfer sheet from expressions vinyl.

More chevron background

Like I mentioned before, I cut a lot of chevron background from my Portrait ! Here’s another one. I love the simple look of this card! Cut the sentiment using Portrait as well. The stamp is colored with copics and then added some shimmer using Wink of Stella on the balloons and the bow. A closer look at the shimmer here:

Supplies: My Favorite Things Happy Hippo stamp set, Copics, Wink of Stella.

Anniversary wishes with Peony Bouquet

I’ve been having fun cutting the chevron background with Silhouette Portrait 2 (used this design). Here I used the inlaid die cutting technique. I cut the purple glitter paper in chevron and then the antique silver glitter paper also in chevron. In the purple background I fit in pieces from antique silver and vice versa. As a result I was able to get two backgrounds! When I finish the card with the other background will share that as well. It was a lot of fun – I created four card bases using this background!

The peony was stamped using versafine onyx black and colored with Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens. The leaves were stamped using the distress inks. The sentiment is stamped in black on vellum and then clear embossed.

If you look closely at the envelope (underneath the card), I stamped that too with peonies – in memento yellow ink. Looks really pretty!

Supplies: Altenew Peony bouquet stamps, My Sentiments Exactly Anniversary Innies and Outies stamp set, Misi stampipng tool.

First card using Silhouette Portrait 2

I’d been waiting for the black friday sale to get a silhouette portrait 2. I sold my KNK Zing sometime back and this was my replacement for it. Zing was a great machine but much more powerful (and hence complex) than my needs. It was also quite big (like other 12” cutters). I leaned towards the Portrait 2 for a couple of reasons:

1. I really like the variety of designs in Silhouette Design Store. It gives you a lot of options.
2. I do not cut anything that’s greater than or equal to 12” on all sides. I can still cut anything greater than 8” in the portrait as long as the other side is less than 8”. That fits the bill for all my projects.
3. The smaller size and the light weight of Portrait swayed me towards it. Smaller size definitely helps in saving space. light weight was probably more of a feel good factor because it’s not like I carry it around.
4. It has the same cutting capabilities as the Cameo – including the bluetooth. I believe the stipple feature is only for Cameo but I don’t care much for it. No longer I wanted to buy a machine thinking “oh what if I needed that feature once in 2 years”. I wanted to buy for my common scenarios.
5. Love the auto-blade feature!

While the price wasn’t that much discounted ($160 vs $200 regular price), I did get $125 credit for Silhouette Design Store and 150 free designs.

Now going back to the card, I really like the clean cuts from the Portrait. For the font I used “bauhaus 93”. It’s one of the fonts that comes pre-installed on Windows. I got the stars from one of the free designs and the chevron background is this design in the store. The glitter paper is from DCWV Glitzy stack. Love that paper! It has glitter but not the kind that rubs off and the paper is very smooth. I used 65lb paper for the background.

Portrait cut settings:

• For DCWV Glitzy cardstock, I used the built-in “Cardstock, Glitter” setting.
• For the 65lb cardstock, I used the built-in “Cardstock, Plain” setting.