Friday 27 April 2012

i'm lovin' it!


the Silhouette Cameo is one of the best purchases i have made! there have been lots of joking around about my "new love" and my "new addiction". haha!! all in good fun. it definitely is a lot of fun and gives me lots of creative freedom.

such as helping my kids practice piano.

for real.

the kids have music each week. right now it is painful to get them to practice. their teacher recently started paying them music bucks for each minute they practice (a temporary incentive). the educator in me realized that it may be useful to have a tactile version of the money they earned. so i found an image of a Canadian $5 bill then imported it into the Silhouette Design Studio. i created a cut file for each bill. copied it to fill a page. {i won't be going to jail for this....all of my fake money is a third the size of the real thing.} then printed and had my Cameo cut it out. took me 10 minutes. and it is working!



if you are new to the Silhouette, i can recommend some classes for you to take. there are a few videos on YouTube {some fantastic but most terrible.}, as well as some online tutorials on various blogs. however i have found these 2 classes to be the best. worth my money and my time. they are self-paced. i have lifetime access. the material is also downloadable if i had to go to some internet-free zone {gasp!}. and some free images too! both classes are $24 each. grab them and learn as you have time. {my favourite kind of class!}

Getting to Know You is introductory. you will learn all of the basics of the machine and create an adorable mini-album at the end, if you like. there are loads of free images. i was worried this would be too basic, but i did learn a few things that helped me do more with my machine. 

Oh, The Places You'll Go! is more advanced. not as many free downloads, but a lot more information about the advanced features on the Cameo. this is perfect if you want to learn how to create your own images. one of my favourite new features is the Print and Cut. i am more grateful that our printer gives us nice crisp images....i can download digital pictures, designs, etc into the software....print it out on my printer...then cut the image with my Cameo. my excited squeal when i discovered how amazing this feature really was got my household running to see what had happened. ha! 




this is just a bit of a snippet from my present class at Urban Scrapbook:

Photobucket


Photobucket


i used the borders from this set to cut the pretty yellow polka dot paper) and the plaid paper.








3_borders





the butterflies on this layout actually came from this cutting file:






butterfly_garland





i found my title from one of Lori Whitlocks' designs. i did make one of my own, but didn't like it as much as i loved this one. should have bought this one in the first place!






sweet_memories_saying








in my layout, i used my old Fiskars Deckle Edged scissors to cut out my base frames for my larger photos. as i was making my class cut files, i decided to customize one of these to fit and pre-cut them for my students.














4_vintage frames






i love that i can adjust the sizes of the files to fit my project. 


i also tested out the "trace" feature and created my own cut file image for the chain link, or chicken wire embellishment. i found a picture on google images, sent it into the Silhouette Studio program and traced it. it was not a copyright image....i checked, phew!


the ironic part is that i had searched the Silhouette Online Store for "chicken wire" but didn't find anything rustic enough. now, i decided to use the search word "chain link" and found this:
















chainlink_background


how handy this would have been a month ago!?!










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