Inspiration Found: Two Print and Cut Cards with Silhouette Studio

I was looking for inspiration the other day, when I came across a post by Jin at UnderACherryTree about making cards using shapes, offsets and rectangles in Silhouette Studio DE.  She has a tutorial here and here, both are easy to follow if you'd like to make one too.  

Originally I was going to make just one card, but then another idea landed in my head so I ended up making two. The first one is for my son who loves music and plays both guitar and piano, as well as the viola.  His birthday is coming up this week.

Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You!

This card came together so easily.  I print and cut everything, including the solid color for the guitar because I wanted an exact match with the color on the patterned paper.  It made it so much easier than hunting down a piece of cardstock that more than likely wouldn't match.

The next card is for no special occasion, but I think I'll give it to my daughter since she's always been my beautiful butterfly!

And with this one I decided to print on the inside as well.

 

I love using the center to page feature in Silhouette Studio DE!  As long as I remember which way to put the paper in to print the second side (something I forgot to do on this card), it's easy to print on both sides of a card.  

I had so much fun making these, I'll definitely be making some more.  Thanks goes to Jin for the inspiration!

Here's what I used:

Guitar Card:

Musical Instruments Cut It Set

Doggy Paper Pack

LD Hanson (font)

LD Hang Ten (font)

Butterfly Card:

Butterflies Cut It Set

Birds Of A Feather Paper Pack

LD Dear Diary (font)

LD Platform Soul (font)

Have A Crafty Day!

A "Fishy" Card: Is It Two Lost Soles Or Sole?

Hi there.  Maybe you could help me out with a little grammar dilemma since I'm no master of the English language.  When I saw this cutting file with two fish in a fish bowl from Lettering Delights, a song started playing in my head.  You know the one, it goes like this:  "We're just two lost souls swimmin' in a fish bowl, year after year.... it's by Pink Floyd, and it's called "Wish You Were Here". I wondered, how could I make this into a punny card?  (And is "punny" even a word?).  I'd heard of sole fish, but I wanted to make sure they really existed.  I consulted google, and yes, there is a type of fish called sole (yeah, I think everybody already knew that, except me!).  I was all set.  Wait a minute, I thought, is it sole or soles when you're talking about two of these type of fish?  I didn't want any one to think I was talking about two feet, but I figured people would get it anyway, so with reckless abandon, I made this card using Silhouette Studio DE (SSDE):

Does that sound right to you?  Are we feet or fish?

I was so pleased with how it turned out, but the issue of whether or not I was making a fool of myself almost prevented me from posting it here.  So I took a risk.  Isn't that what life's about?  If anyone reading would care to offer an answer, I'd love to know, but I can't say it'd change my mind about making this card!
 
To create the front of the card I had to give dimension to the frame to make room for the beads.  To do this, I made an inset shape of the frame and cut it out six times.  I glued each shape together and then glued them to the card base:

Hey, what are those green things down there?

It didn't matter if the stacked shapes were perfectly lined up since the frame I placed over them covered them up:

Hey, this fishbowl is kinda nice, maybe we're not lost!

I used the sketch feature, set on continuous, to sketch on the frame (this was inspired by Jin's card), and then I cut a piece of acetate and glued it to the back of the frame before adhering it to the front of the card.  If you'd like you can check out the other card I made using the sketch feature in this post.

In SSDE I used print and cut to create the card base.  To align the front and inner sentiment I used center to page. I printed the front of the card, turned the paper over, put it back in my printer and printed the inside.  CAUTION: Take note of which end of the paper went into the printer first.  You MUST put the same end that went in on the first printing, in for the second time, or this will happen:  

Don't let this tragedy happen to you!!

I took the paper out of the printer and couldn't remember which way I'd put it in, so I guessed.  Oops.  I'd like to blame it on son number 3, who happened to walk in and talk to me at that very moment, but I take full responsibility, seriously, son, it's not your fault.  To prevent this in the future, I'll draw a little arrow on the paper to indicate which end I put in first (hopefully I'll remember to do that!).  Has this happened to you?  I hope not.  Now I've got to figure a nifty way to cover this up so I can give it to my husband who loves Pink Floyd as well.  Any ideas?  Leave a comment and let me know!

Supplies I used:
Silhouette Studio Designer Edition
Silhouette Cameo
Silhouette Black Sketch Pen
American Crafts White Cardstock
Green Seed Beads
Hooked on You Cut It Set
LDJ Zoodle Font

Thanks for checking out my "Two Lost Soles" card, and Have A Crafty Day!
 

How One Card Turned Into Four Cards!

Because of the event that started my week I didn't get the chance to post the cards I made with that lovely melting snowman from this post.   Instead of making one card, I ended up making four different versions of the same card.  I'd like to show you all four versions of this card, and maybe you'll discover, as I did, that creating is a process!  During that process I used a lot of features in Silhouette Studio DE(SSDE).  SSDE has many great features that I love, but my absolute favorite is the ability to print, sketch and then cut.  I have not been able to achieve this in Make The Cut.  If anyone knows how to do it in that program PLEASE let me know!  Well, on to the first version:

I'm floating!

Something didn't look right when I put this card together.  It was too plain and the snowman was floating!  I went back to fix that and came up with this:

Much better down here!

I'm feeling sketchy

I lowered the snowman and added some sketching around him to look like a shadow.  This is where I got to use the print, sketch and cut feature.  It looked much better to me, until I thought, something's still missing!  On to the next one:

Not the sun!!

Yes, it needed a sun!  I mean, why else would he be melting?  The sun was cropped to the printed mat on the front of the card so the rays didn't extend beyond the mat.  Cropping is another fun feature in SSDE.  In the first two cards I paper pieced the snowman, but in this one I just printed him out, making it quicker to put together.  I was satisfied with this card until I remembered all the cards Jin makes at Under A Cherry Tree.  I thought, I need to make it a shaped card and take it to the next level!  On to the fourth and final version:

Since this card had less space, I had to eliminate the words on the front.  I also used a different type of sketch around the snowman.  You might notice a black line around the card edge, which is from me not remembering to make the outline transparent instead of black.  I thought if I didn't have print outlines checked in the program those lines wouldn't print, but they did.  I didn't want to make a fifth card!  In case you're wondering, here are the inner sentiments for the cards:

How sweet!

So that's the creative process I went through to get to a card I felt happy with.  I learned to keep going when you're not satisfied, and that it's a great way to distract yourself from things you'd like to forget about!  Do any of you find the same things to be true?  I'd love to hear what your creative process is like!  Here's what I used to make these cards:

Snow-Brainers Cut It Set

In Like a Lion Paper Pack

Soak Up the Sun  SVGs

LDJ Drippy Font

LD Love Me Font

SNF Lollihop Font

Thanks for stopping by and Have a Crafty Day!

  

Happy Easter Bunny Shaped Card

I had such a fun time creating this bunny shaped card!  I decided to do this for the Bunny Week Challenge Mary is having at Cardz TV.  I got this bunny from the now closed Little Dreamer Designs.  It was designed by Nancy Kubo.  As I am always late to get on the band wagon, this was my one and only purchase from this store.  I had not really looked into it until Jin at Under A Cherry Tree had posted about the store closing on her blog.  When I saw these bunnies I knew I had to have them!  This card was also inspired by Jin and the way she creates her shaped cards.  I created the base using a rectangle so the card would stand on its own and there was room for a sentiment.  Of course Make The Cut(MTC) was used to do this.  First I had to convert the bunny graphic so it would be traceable in MTC.  Jin has a wonderful tutorial on her blog which shows how this is done using Photoshop.  I used Photoshop Elements 7 and it worked just fine.  I also printed the "Happy Easter" from MTC.  And yes Jin has a tutorial for that too!  I finished off the front of the card with some hand cut "grass" at the bottom, some googly eyes on the bunny, and some stickles.  Since I can print from MTC I like to print my inner sentiments from there also.  It's really easy, I don't even have to use the hinge method as there is enough leeway that it seems to print correctly.

I think this adds a nice touch to the card.  I dare not say it looks professional, but I think it looks nice!  Hope you liked my card and have the time for a comment- it's nice to know someone is out there every once in a while!   Have a great Sunday evening!

Hoppy Valentine's Day!

Hoppy Valentine's Day to you!  Well, that's what this frog would say if he could, right?  He let his heart do the talking instead!  I used Make The Cut to design this card with a little help from Jin at Under A Cherry Tree.  She has an excellent tutorial for making shaped cards in Make The Cut.  She uses a method which involves taking the two shapes (in this case a frog), flipping one and then putting them next to each other and creating a shadow.  It is much easier than the way I was doing it.  By the way the frog is from the Frogs and Kisses SVG set from Lettering Delights.  I love this set, it is too cute!!  It includes a few frogs and some really adorable sentiments.   I made this card for my daughter's teacher since she happens to have a thing for frogs.  I knew this would be perfect for her.  I couldn't get enough of the frog, so I had to make a matching envelope!  I just welded him to an envelope I created using basic shapes in Make The Cut.  In order to get the printing on these hearts I had to use the hinge method I learned about on Cleversomeday.  I have not perfected the print and cut with Make The Cut, and I believe it's because my Cricut is inconsistent with where it cuts.  The hinge method is much more accurate and less frustrating for me!  Hope your Valentine's Day is full of love and happiness!  Feel free to let me know what you think of my frog shaped card.  Here are a few more pics (sorry, I really like this one!).

Thanks for stopping by!!

Christmas in July CardzTV Challenge #2

I'm really enjoying making Christmas cards in July! This one especially makes me feel cool and frosty, just what I need right now in this heat! The challenge at CardzTV was to make a Christmas card with a snowman. I made this on my Gypsy using the snowman on the Doodlecharms cartridge. The snowflakes from Going Places are welded to his stick arms and have a jewel in the center. "Frosty Christmas Wishes" is welded using the Winter Woodland cart. The hat is stuck on the top (cut twice for stability) with a strip of cardstock and some jewels and is from Create a Critter. My 8 year old son wanted me to make the carrot nose 3D, but I couldn't figure out how to make that work! The snowman's mouth is a piece of a circle of jewels. Of course after I put this all together I was looking on my Gypsy and I found another similar snowman on Gypsy Wanderings with three snowballs that I might have liked better, but I still think this one is cute! All paper is DCWV as usual. It's so nice to be able to create while you wait- I made this one while waiting to pick up my son from summer school. Hope you like it and thanks for looking!