Silhouette

Two tips for Silhouette users

December 8, 2010 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I don’t tell people what I want for Christmas. It’s just not my thing…well, not since I was little and would spend hours spread out on the living room floor with the JC Penney catalog in front of me, carefully noting the page numbers and details about the items I hoped Santa would bring. It didn’t take me many years to realize, though, that I much prefer to be genuinely surprised when I open my gifts. I love the anticipation. I love to slowly, painstakingly unwrap the item that my loved one brainstormed, purchased or made and wrapped. It all takes thought, and I really appreciate that thought and love the feeling of it.

So, because I don’t create wish lists for my peeps, I don’t believe I can expect them to know the deepest desires of my heart (materially speaking). I mean, how could they? All I expect is that they will give me something that they believe I’ll like based on what they know of me. Is it so far fetched to believe that sometimes our deepest desires might intersect with what our family knows about us? Do you believe? I still believe.

In 2008 Matt was my Scrap Santa! I have one of the original QuicKutz Silhouette machines because my loving husband figured me out. I remember being so surprised when I opened that package that I started to cry. How in the world did he know how much I had been longing for one?

Well, I love my Silhouette…most of the time. But there are definitely ways that my experience in using it could be improved. I mean, how many of you Silhouette users who upgraded to the new Studio software really like the improvements to the interface but find that it crashes about every other time you use it? And every time I buy a new design or two using my subscription I have to go back in and re-download it. Oh well, those are just technical snafus; I still love using the machine and am amazed at what I can make with it.

So, I recently came across a few ideas for making your Silhouette crafting even better, and I think it’s only fair to pass them along to you, gentle reader:

Cardstock that is a bit “creamier” in texture is said to cut better. In fact, I’ve heard from several sources that American Crafts cardstock is awesome to cut with the Silhouette.
Once you’ve chosen your design and sized it the way you want it, mirror horizontally so that it is in reverse. Then flip your paper over so that it’s face down when you put it on your carrier sheet. This way once you’ve cut the design you can just apply your adhesive to the die cuts while they’re still on the sticky mat. Then just lift once and adhere to your page.

I hope these few tips are useful to your scrapping life. Every little tip helps, right?

Making a Christmas banner: Fa la la la la!

December 6, 2010 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I really like to follow scrapbook trends. But I don’t always try each one because either it doesn’t fit my style or I don’t want to buy the needed supplies just to try it. But banners are a craze that I have been able to get into.

There are so many times when a banner is the perfect way to add a celebratory feel to the occasion or scrapbook page. And there are a million ways to make your banner unique.

I just completed a Christmas banner this weekend to grace our fireplace mantel. I’m including details about how I made this in case you’d like to make a banner for your house but don’t want to take time figuring out the measurements, etc. First is the finished banner:

The finished product: My Christmas banner

And here’s how it came together:

Choose two 12×12 sheets of two patterned papers (the Christmas trees are by The Paper Studio, and the distressed polka dots are by My Mind’s Eye).
Pull two colors of 8.5×11 cardstock for the letters.
Select two coordinating colors of ribbon.
Grab your dry adhesive as well as your hot glue gun.
Die cut the individual flags of the banner using the two largest dies in the Spellbinders Labels 8 set.

I cut out the flags of the banner using the two largest dies in the Spellbinders Labels 8 set and my Cuttlebug.

Cut out the letters to spell your chosen message. I set up my words in my Silhouette software and cut the pale blue for the letter and the green for the offset. I used the Arial Rounded font.

I cut out the letters for my version using my Silhouette.

Assemble the two layers of the lettering.
Assemble the two layers of each flag.
Center and adhere the appropriate letter to each flag to spell your word.
Use a hole punch in both corners of each flag, lining up subsequent flags to the first for consistent placement.
Lay out the banner as you want it to hang (in the correct order) on your work table.
Plug in your glue gun to start it heating up.
Cut ribbon into 12-inch lengths for each hole. I used 11-inch lengths and think it would have been easier to tie into bows with a little more. I also alternated the two colors so that every other tie was the other color. Tie each flag to the next one.
String a length of ribbon through the first and last holes to create hangers. Because I had already decided that I would be adding a rosette to the ties (which would cover my adhesive), I used a hot glue gun to attach the two ends of the ribbon to form a loop.
Create two rosettes, one for each end’s tie. For each:
- Cut a 1.25×11-inch piece of cardstock and accordion fold it.
- Glue one end of one strip to its other end to form a loop.
- Punch a 1.5-inch circle out of a spare bit of cardstock and place it on your worktable. Put a good dose of hot glue all over the circle and immediately but gently “close” the accordion onto the hot glue. Hold your rosette in place until the glue dries.
- Die cut or punch coordinating toppers for your rosette and use the hot glue to adhere them.
Adhere the rosettes to the ties of the banner. For each, punch another 1.5-inch circle out of cardstock. Slather it with hot glue, then quickly place it behind the spot on the tie where you attached the two ends earlier. Place the finished rosette right above the sticky circle and create a sandwich around the ribbon.

Create a rosette with leftover supplies to finish off the ends of the banner.

Hang your artwork for all to see!

If you played along and created a banner following these steps (even if loosely) please let me know in the comments. I would love to see what you made. And if my directions leave you with questions, post those in comments as well. I’ll try to clear things up for you.

You cannot win if you do not play

November 23, 2010 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

For a long time I’ve been a lurker online. I read blogs and shook my head, laughing at the funny things other crafters said. But I didn’t comment. I read product reviews and agreed or disagreed with the analysis. But I didn’t drop the reviewer a line about my opinion. I learned about scrapbook and card challenges and toyed with the idea of participating. But I didn’t send in my layouts for consideration.

However, with the start of this blog I decided that had to change. I had to stop lurking and start speaking up. And I admit that’s challenging for me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned to my husband, Matt, at his computer and told him what I thought of things I had read online. And after patiently (usually) listening to my diatribe, he would often say, “You should be blogging this stuff. Or at the very least you should comment on that person’s post.” At the mention of sharing my thoughts publicly I usually just turned back to my computer to read more of what others had written.

When it comes to the challenges and contests I really just haven’t thought I could compete with all the talent out there in the world. There are so many amazing layouts being posted every single day! But that was just a lame excuse for not having to expose myself to critique—or worse, to ridicule.

So I’ve ended that by starting to throw my hat into the ring every so often. It has been so motivating and much more fun than I expected it to be! I’ve even won a few times. Yay! But even more than the winning, I’m enjoying knowing that others are looking at my art. I just hadn’t realized how much that was missing from my process. I’m accustomed to finishing a layout, showing Matt for his approval, and then putting it in the appropriate album. Sort of a letdown, you know?

Well, last night I took the next step in this journey of making my crafting process more public and social. I submitted my work for consideration for a design team. Gulp.

The assignment was fun because it involved working with sketches, which I really love anyway. I liked the sketches, and I’m proud of my resulting layouts. So I feel like I won even if I’m not chosen for the team. Here are my submissions:

Baptized

Sunset cruise

Scrapbook PageMaps 2 sketch contest

November 14, 2010 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I love, love, love to scrapbook using sketches. I visit sketch sites online for ideas. I sketch my own ideas and follow them. And I use every nice book of sketches that I can get my hands on.

So, of course, I love Becky Fleck’s PageMaps sketches. She puts out new sketches on pagemaps.com at the first of each month, and she also publishes books of her work. I purchased her first book when it came out a few years ago, and I love it! Now her second book is out, and she’s holding a layout contest with her new book as the prize. Just try to keep me from playing along with that!

Here is the sketch:

PageMaps contest sketch

And here is my layout based on it:

First days

I really enjoyed using this sketch, and even if I don’t win the prize I’m thrilled to have completed another layout about my childhood to add to my album.

Note: I’m submitting this to the Paper Issues “You rule the school” link party.

Something wicked this way comes

October 26, 2010 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Matt has taught me to be an animal rescuer. He grew up in a family that over the years rescued at least one of just about every type of animal that was loaded onto Noah’s ark. So I’ve become quite sensitized to noticing wildlife in need or in danger, and I kick into action quickly.

The other night I went out late to take a few photos of the beautiful full moon. As I was setting up my shot I perceived something in my peripheral vision that startled me. We live on a rather busy street in suburbia, so it was a huge surprise to see a tarantula crossing the street toward me!

I ran into the house and screamed, “There’s a tarantula crossing the street right out front!”

It took a few seconds for what I said to register with Matt, but then he ran out the door while I ran in to find an empty jar to catch him* with. When I returned Matt was “escorting” him to safety before more cars came by. We caught him with the jar and put him in a small terrarium we have from a time when we used to keep Emperor scorpions several years ago (a gift from one of Matt’s employees, no less).

The next day we drove our new friend at least 10 miles out of town, deep down a nice unpopulated country road. We found a perfect spot and tipped him out of the terrarium and into his new neighborhood.

So, maybe he wasn’t really wicked at all, but his timing was certainly impeccable!

*In point of fact, we never determined the sex of our tarantula friend. We decided to respect “his” privacy.

Wicked or wicked cool?

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