Wedding cards and gift

It's been crazy for weddings in our family!   We have had 2 weddings this month and 2 in June.  These are a few of the cards I have been making to go along with the cutting boards I personalize for each of the kids getting married.

 I set up print lines for the heart outside, so I could MINC foil it after it was cut.  I did a print and cut for the dotted lines and cut the center out.  I did print and cut for the banner, printing the congratulations and cutting the banner, the quatrefoil and white flower out of the same sheet. I cut the card out of blush cardstock.  After getting everything cut out, I foiled the banner and heart. To adhere the quatrefoil I just ran my adhesive runner on the backside of the tan around the outer part of the cut out heart, and then added pop dots to make the tan stand off of the card and give the quatrefoil a little attention.  The banner was added and then I made my flowers stand up by using an embossing tool (you can use a needle or even a nail to do this) and rolling the leaves just a bit. I popped the flowers too with thin pop dots.

This card was rather easy. I used a Silhouette store design-5x5 heart flourish card, I stretched it to 6x6 so it would fit my envelope and cut it out.  It didn't come with words, so I choose another Silhouette design-best wishes layered script phrase, to add the Best Wishes to it.  The center of the heart is gold glitter vinyl, my latest love and all time new favorite. If you use a design that is intricate like this one, be sure to use glue on the little parts so they don't pop up and get torn.

This is the cutting board I have been making for all my nieces and nephews getting married.  I also buy a nice set of knives to along with it.  You can use either matte or glossy vinyl. Make sure to clean the cutting board thoroughly, I use rubbing alcohol on mine.  Also make sure you cut your words in reverse since you are adding them to the back.

Valentine's block

So I decided that I don't have enough Valentine decorations last night. I wanted to come up with something easy yet cute.  I bought the block at a craft store, but you can cut a block or even use a piece of leftover wood. My block dimensions are 5"x5.25"x1.50".  I painted it brown, sanded it a bit, just enough to roughen it up but not take off the paint, After that lightly painted it white, just covering it enough to give it a white washed look. After it dried I sanded the edges. I sanded down to the wood, but you can just sand down to the brown paint.  I picked my design, Love heart, from the Silhouette store and then choose colors of the vinyl I would use. I went with pink and red, so I then colored in the words in the design, so I could see exactly what it would look like done and it also makes placing the words easier.

After I did this, I removed the pink and left the red in their original spot and cut them out of red vinyl. I removed the excess vinyl and weeded around the lettering, then placed transfer tape on top and placed it to the side.

Once the red was done, I hit the back arrow several times and added all of the pink wording back and then deleted the red words. I cut this out in pink vinyl. I removed the excess vinyl and weeded the lettering again, but instead of putting transfer tape over it, I removed the backing on the red words and brought that piece of transfer tape with the vinyl over and lined it up to match the design, once it was in place I rubbed the transfer tape down on the vinyl and made sure it picked up both the red and pink words. I placed the words on the block making sure I had it right where I wanted it, then I rubbed the vinyl down and removed the transfer tape.  Some of the letters wanted to come up with the transfer tape, so it took a little time and work to get them down. This is what I got when I was finished.

Foiled gift tags

With Valentine's day coming up so quickly, I figured I better get some tags done to go on the goodies I got for the kids. I had to try the gold foil on black tags, who could resist?

 I printed the sayings, some from the Silhouette store and some from my own fonts, on black cardstock with my laserjet printer without registration marks, because my Silhouette won't be able to read the marks.  The tag outline is not to be printed.

 

After printing out the sayings, I made sure to line up the cardstock with the screen, to get the tags to cut out right. When getting it ready to cut, I made sure that only the tag outline was set to cut, and set the sayings to no cut, then cut out the tags. Once the tags were cut, I foiled them with my Minc foil machine.  They turned out so cute, that I made birthday and thank you tags too, just in case.

Adobe Illustrator isn't so scary

 I had no idea how all of these crafters were making phrases with the over the top swirls and swashes, but now that I had gotten a foil machine, I wanted to make my own sayings and phrases. So, I started looking into it. It seems that all these fonts that I have been obsessively buying came with glyphs.  Now, I knew they had added swashes, but I was totally clueless as to how you found them and attached them to the font.  Finally, I found a few articles and youtube videos on how to add the glyphs to a font. It seems you need Adobe Illustrator to do it. I have always been intimidated by Adobe photoshop and all of its additional programs. I can use it, but I am by NO means good at it, however, Illustrator is fairly simple and you can cut and paste your project directly into Silhouette.  This means all those amazing sayings and phrases that I cannot find, I can make myself and cut it out. I also found watercolor flowers that are easy to use in AI, click and drag, so I can make those signs and cards that I love on Etsy!