Graduation!

My little brother is graduating today! I don't know why this makes me feel so old but it really does... After graduation we plan to have dinner as a family at a local restaurant and solicited a family member to make desserts. My cousin is a sort of "cupcake connoisseur". She is the reserved baker in our family! She even has her own out of home cupcake business by the name of A Delightful Bite. 

However, while browsing on Pinterest my mom found a cute way to serve the cupcakes:

http://birdonacake.blogspot.com/2012/05/perfectly-packaged-rose-cupcakes.html?m=1

These are packaged so nicely! Now of course, me being recently addicted to my Silhouette Cameo figured we could take this look a bit further using vinyl. 

Isn't it so cute?! I'll show you how I made this in the Silhouette software. 

I have the designer edition of the Silhouette software but I know this method will work with the regular edition as well. I found an image of a grad cap off google images and imported it into my software. 

Next, you'll want to open the trace window. This allows you to create a cut file for an image found online. 

The area that is highlighted yellow is what the Silhouette will trace. For images I find online, I usually select low pass filter because it eliminates a double line that is created when normally tracing images. 

After this, select trace and then you'll have your cut file. 

Yay!!! A new cut file! This process can be used to create a cut file from most images found online.

I played around with a couple of different variations of this design and my mom eventually picked the top left design. 

That's it! I sent my design to the Cameo and used black vinyl for the design. 

We placed purple grass in the cups for the cupcakes to sit upon. We figured this would allow for easy access to the cupcakes. 

The beautiful cupcakes inside their containers! Overall, I think these came out wonderfully and hope they'll be successful at the dinner tonight! 

BIG REVEAL

I finally got a Silhouette Cameo! I am one happy crafter this Christmas season! I ended up getting the vinyl starter kit and the glass etching kit for Christmas. However, I was only able to work the vinyl today! My first task was to make a small monogram vinyl decal! I actually have a mini tutorial for this as well. 

It's adorable, right?! 

Materials:

Silhouette Cameo

Premium Vinyl (I used Silhouette's                           brand of vinyl) 

Transfer Paper

A tool for weeding (I used Silhouette hook tool)

Silhouette Scraper Tool

First, I made my monogram using the basic Silhouette software. It's fairly simple and it'll cut any font you already have on your computer. I downloaded this monogram font from Dafont.com. I typed the 'M' and the 'V' seperately then arranged the letters where I wanted. I selected the monogram in it's entirety, right clicked and welded it together. All this does is create a unifying monogram so it cuts as one piece. 

When cutting, the Silhouette software gives you recommended settings for the blade number, speed and pressure of the cut. Personally, for my vinyl needs I've placed my blade on #1 rather than #2. 

I know it's kind of hard to tell, but this is what the vinyl looks like after being cut. At this point, I cut the vinyl to make it a smaller working area for when I weed it. 

This is the monogram after weeding it! Now from here you could just peel the vinyl off or you can use transfer paper. I prefer to use transfer paper because it's a quicker process for applying the vinyl to whatever surface you decide! 

I know it's sideways, I'm working off my phone, sorry! This is the transfer paper once it's applied to the vinyl. 

Simple peel the original backing of the vinyl and you'll end up with what you see above! From here you just place your vinyl wherever you chose! This particular transfer paper is great because of the grids. It gives me the guidance I need to make sure I'm placing the vinyl in the correct spot. You'll need to use a scraper of some sort to set the vinyl in place while the transfer paper is still on. It'll just help transfer the vinyl to the new surface!

So there it is! This monogram is about 3 inches tall and 2 1/2 inches wide. All in all it probably took 5-10 minutes! 

Here's another craft I made!

I'm already in love with this machine! The possibilities are endless!