Monday, April 30, 2012

Something Sweet for Something Sweet


Another 3D creation from the Silhouette Studio store! This one's a 3D candy box. After the initial assembly (again, there are online instructions), I added a little this and that to make it special.

On the lid, I added a window, and the top of the window is open so the message can slide out. Like "hands off!!!" if I don't want to share, lol! I cut an opening in black cardstock with a Spellbinders die and surrounded it with bling. 



On the opposite side, I cut a quote out from the G45 paper.



I cut four pieces of black cardstock, and put them in the Cameo to cut out fern pieces. On the negative rectangles, I stuck some Sookwang tape so that I could make the openings all nice and glittery.


I glued the leftover pieces of fern onto the top of the box, along with some skinny strips of Kraft that I coiled around a pencil. I also added a spiral of pleated ribbon on top of a gluber. Super easy way to make a flower! The patterned kraft paper is by Graphic 45.


You can lift the lid to fill the box with candy...


And then open the front!


Totally addicted to these 3D projects now! This one's on display at Scrapbook Queens... there might not be any candy left. ;)

Supplies:  Maya road ribbon, Glubers, Graphic 45 Kraft Reflections, Glitter Ritz glitter, Spellbinders, Bazzill cardstock, bling

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Washi Storage on a Budget

I've been loving my washi tape (now a "collection") and really liked the way it looked in my little clear box. But I've now outgrown it, as I'm sure many others are doing! Fast forward to me taking my daughter to the local dollar store and finding this for $1.99:


Check it out... the plastic dowels come out....


Making it easy to slide my washi tape on! Of course, I had to make sure the tape rolled over the top on each one, just like toilet paper. I can see a whole new debate coming up on Two Peas. :) 


Here it is, loaded with all of my rolls:


The handle rotates, so it could be easily hung up in your scraproom. I'll keep an eye on it as the only possible flaw I could see would be that the plastic dowels would bend with the weight. They could be easily replaced with wood though.


The details:


The great news is that I have room for another 10 rolls or so!!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Building a Shadow Box



So, I just bought the 11.3"x11.3" 3D shadow box in the Silhouette store.  There's a smaller version, too, but "go big or go home," right? It comes in three parts, so the cost is $2.97.  It's also for sale in Lori Whitlock's online store for $4.99, so if you have a Cameo/Silhouette, definitely buy it through their online store. All of her assembly instructions can be found on you tube here.

I followed MOST of these instructions. Because I wanted a backer sheet and not an open windowed box, I omitted the frame backing (same shape as the front) and just stuck it straight on a flat square of paper. I cut the front frame from patterned paper and the rest from cardstock.

One minor point about the ribbon: I tied it together on the inside, so that it was a full loop of ribbon, rather than tying a knot under each hole. I felt that it would be stronger that way. The weight of the box would not be pulling on the holes, but rather the full piece of cardstock on top.

I found that, if you look carefully, some of the corners don't meet up exactly. The cut file is accurate, so if you are very very very precise, you will probably be able to get it perfectly lined up. But I don't have that kind of patience, and my glue dries quickly. Yeah, I'll blame the glue. ;)


As I'm taking photos of it now, I think it would be really cool to have cut little holes in the top pieces of some of the boxes and have little ribbons hanging down to dangle things.  Hmmm..... maybe I'll still do that.

The negatives of the cuts could be used as backing within the box. Flipped over if you have double sided paper (I'm using some older Echo Park "Life Is Good" paper with this one). I had to trim a millimeter or so off the edges because they were really tight otherwise. So much so that the paper wouldn't lie flat. Probably due to my poor initial assembly skills.


If not being used for the box, these left over pieces are perfect templates for other pieces of paper, or use them for cards. They're great sizes for colour blocking.

For the decorating of this project, I wanted tot take advantage of the 3D boxes. I have a sheet of element stickers that matches the paper, but they're 2D, so I backed some of the houses with cardstock, and stuck a little triangle on the back to help them stand. Here's the Silhouette shape I created:


I can email you this file if you want it.  And here's how the back of the house looks:



 
For the houses that I'm going to stick to the frame, I left the bottom of the house sticky.



For the "life is good" box, I cut a square of plastic from a package and left little tabs on each side which I slid into little slits I cut on the inside square of the box. I used my washi tape roll as a height guide. :) You can kind of see the tabs if you look carefully, especially on the left side.


 
The "home sweet home" was designed in Studio. I drew a rectangle the same size as the box and put the font and shape inside it to make sure I was getting the right size. You can see I tried all sorts of fonts before I found the right one. (I used http://www.flippingtypical.com/ to look at my fonts first. Thanks to the Peas for pointing out this awesome site.) I could see that there were a few little bits in the title that I didn't want to bother with cutting, so I ungrouped/released compound path and deleted them before I cut (I'm talking about the little bits inside the e's as an example).


I ran little wires of fishing line through the edges of the box with a curved needle. I made a big loop and tied a fishing knot in the middle. Then, I glued the "Home Sweet Home" on top to hide the knot. It looks like it's floating in midair. :)





I liked this project because I got to experiment with lots of different 3D methods:  the houses standing up, the acrylic sheets, the fishing line, and the actual box itself.

Looks like I have a fan already.... hope Max doesn't eat this before I have a chance to hang it up!


Materials:  Echo Park "Life is Good" paper and sticker sheet, acrylic from garbage, Silhouette Cameo, Bazzill cardstock, fishing line, Glitter Ritz (in the background behind the houses

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Creating Cameo Cut Files for Acrylic Albums

This week I've been working on an acrylic album. Now, I have no problem cutting rectangles and squares for the pages with my paper trimmer. But I wanted to be able to cut some of the more intricate shapes, too. So again I turned to my trusty Cameo. I'm just now working on my third patterned shape, so I'll post the step-by-step in case anyone else wants to give it a try. It's not really a beginner's topic; you'll be more successful with this if you have the Designer Edition because of the knives. If you happen to be using the Harmonie Acrylic Album (product code AC578) and want the cut files, just email me and I'll send them to you. (sorry in advance for the monitor photos)
  1. Remove the protective film off the acrylic sheet if it is opaque.
  2. Open up Silhouette Cameo.  Use the "zoom in and out using mouse" icon to adjust the zoom so that an inch on the screen is an actual inch. Hold a ruler up to the screen and measure. I find measuring a big distance, such as 8 inches, works best. Once this has been done, whatever shape you make on the screen is true to life size.


  3. Find a similar shape in your library. It doesn't need to be perfect because you can change it a bit, but if you're doing a bracket, make sure it has its bumps in the right place. Weld it to a rectangle if you need to modify it a bit.  In my case, I have a shape that's a rectangle with a 4-bump scallop on one side. If you have Designer Edition, you will find it a little easier to make your shape. Start with a rectangle and use the Serrated 1 knife. I made the rectangle about an inch bigger on each side than my shape.
  4. Make sure to turn the Auto Apply on the knife "Off" so that you can modify it a bit.  I selected the Serrated 1 knife and cut across. Then I used the "stretcher" feature to adjust the cut so that there are 4 bumps only (if this were science class, and it was a wave, it would be the frequency of the wave). You drag the little grey button left and right to change the frequency.  It's not crucial that the width matches your shape exactly at this point, but make it close.
  5. Next, adjust the depth of the wave using this other feature -- click on the little red dot and drag it up and down to see what it does in your Silhouette Studio. You drag it up and down until it is the same depth as your scallops on your shape. This is more important to get right. You still have not yet applied your knife.
  6. Stretch your rectangle so that it fits the scallops in width. Now you're ready to apply your knife. Select your knife line and then click on "Apply Selected Knife."  Pull away the cut piece and delete it.

  7. I missed a bit, so I'll go back with my knife and cut off a bit. You could also use "edit points" to fix this instead. This is a little nitpicky.... you could just cut it with scissors afterwards if you wanted.
  8. You can use the "scale" icon to bring up the options on the right to set the exact width dimensions. You'll want to avoid using "Lock Aspect Ratio" or the height adjustment because this will mess up the depth of the scallop. I went and set mine to a width of 8 inches.
  9. Trim the top side so the fit is right.
  10. Next, line your shape back up to the screen and go in and edit points to line up to an exact match to your shape. You can add little circles for your hole punches too.
  11. Send to Silhouette and cut.
You can flip your shape horizontally or vertically to cut paper for the other side of the piece of acrylic. Don't assume that your piece is perfectly symetrical.

Here are a few pics of a bracket shape I did yesterday:







I'd say "easy peasy," but it's not really to be honest. You need to be comfortable / enjoy messing around with it to be successful here. Having a good understanding of editting points and curved lines will help make your shape perfect. That said, it really helps make an album look more finished.

If you're more low tech, you can actually just trace your shape and cut it out with scissors. That might be faster. And would make for a shorter blog post. :)

Anyway, if you want to give this a try and have any questions, let me know. I'm happy to help.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

My First Time ;)

Ok... so I finally did it... I cracked open (well.... ripped) the washi tape. I didn't really do anything spectacular with it, but it's a start. 


This is more like a "Where's washi?" game! If you can't see it, I actually used a light grey washi in the upper left and the lower right. It's hard to see. But sometimes baby steps are needed. :)

Supplies:  patterned paper - My Minds Eye, title letters - American Crafts Thickers, washi tape, glitter (on some of the pennants) - Glitter Ritz, staples, Bazzill cardstock