Silhouette Cameo Design Team 2016 News!!

I am really delighted to say that the other week, I was one of eight folk picked to be a member of the Silhouette Cameo Design Team UK for 2016. It took me a while to decide if I had the nerve to do it, but I submitted my application, and here I am - nervous as heck, but pleased as Punch!

We have to make and document projects each week, so although it will be a challenge, as my husband said, I make things with my Silhouette Cameo every week anyway! Tonight is just a quick post as I will be away for a few days, but I am really delighted with my first project which involves daisies, and that will be posted at the end of the month.

This week's free file from Silhouette is a flower, and as a friend has a birthday this week, this is the design I came up with. The flower reminded me of a Poinsettia, hence the colour choice, and as one of the backgrounds in the Silhouette Cameo software consists of black and white stripes, that just seemed perfect with it - classy elegance with a touch of pzazz!

By releasing the compound path in the Silhouette software (on the top menu, Object, release compound path) you can alter the individual pieces and choose what colour to make them. I chose white for the background that lies on the layer underneath all the other shapes, and once everything is reconstructed, you have this beautiful, colourful flower. The Silhouette software that comes with the machine is super easy to use, not only for altering bought (or free!) shapes, but also for making shapes of your own. It is the best craft machine I have ever used, and I have been using it almost every day for three years.

After I made the card, it occurred to me that matching gift wrap would be fun, so I printed out the stripes and the floral paper on ordinary printer paper, plus a gift tag.

Check out my fellow Design team members , who will be posting regularly on the Silhouette UK Blog. 

Welcome to my world, and I hope you will start to follow my Blog and ask lots of questions about using the Silhouette.

Using the free shape of the week Silhouette Cameo

My husband isn't the declaration style lover. He is more "I'll wash your car and top up the washing fluid" style of guy, which l actually prefer, so the inside had to be something that would bring a smile. Inside it reads "Yesterday you really made me mad!", which is true as we are always arguing about something, and yesterday it was how to get to our daughter's house after he had taken a wrong turn :)

When I used my own dotty infill for the letters, for some reason, as you can see, the scale was different within different letters. This could be sorted by separating the letters and adjusting the background scale, if it bothered you.

I always have packs of cut outs left over from other projects, so I used up some flowers, made the card as a gate fold and fastened the front with a brad and some Bakers' twine.

If my Mum had been alive, it could have been used for Mother's Day, but the inside would have read"...and less than tomorrow!"

I hope it inspires you!

This was designed by myself from scratch and took a day and a half to get to this point. It is a surprise for a friend's daughter and son-in-law.

4th February 2016 free design from Silhouette Cameo

I have to say that initially I was not inspired with this week's free file, but once I had injected more colour, changed the words a little and given it a James Bond style bow tie, I have to say my husband  may actually get a Valentine's card this year! I hope you like it!

I turned the black heart upside down and made a small stem to fuse to it, to make the spade symbol. The club symbol was made by fusing three circles and giving it stem as well. The four symbols were aligned, spaced horizontally and then I made a vertical pattern to make the frame. I used one of the Jacquard style backgrounds on the cards and copied that grey for the bottom mat. The next layer was simply the supplied card shape with a few extra words. By tracing the black lips I made red ones. I was going to put a red bow on the card then I suddenly thought about Sean Connery and the card just had to have a bow tie! 

This just goes to show what you can do with a few very simple shapes and a Silhouette Cameo.

Favourite things made with my Silhouette Cameo

As I may be applying to be a designer/blogger for Silhouette Cameo SC) for a year, I thought I would do a quick post of some of the pieces that are my favourite "makes" with my Sil. This house was a complete copy of one made by Torie Jayne. I thought it was simply the most beautiful thing I had seen, and that I could not improve upon it. The advent house came from Panduro hobby and arrived with several drawers broken in transit, however they kindly sent me another - which also had broken in transit - so with a bit of glue I had two houses to decorate. It too me 2 years to get around to it, using papers by Tilda, which are to die for I reckon. I gave this to my daughter for her November birthday and I hope it will become an heirloom!

Using the Pixscan mat for my SC was invaluable as I could get all the front pieces cut out centrally on many of the paper pieces for the drawers, which also had round holes cut in them for the drawer handles. The SC made it all a breeze, and a most enjoyable project.

Below, you can see a card I designed from the photo of a house my friend was moving to. The SC software makes it easy to draw simple shapes for windows, doors etc, and both, me and my friend were well pleased with the result!

Box cards were all the rage for some time, so I made one for the arrival of our first grandchild.

The onesie, and the rocking horse shapes I designed for myself on the SC. Templates are available now for the box card, but I designed my own.

The friend of a friend was being given the honour of being made a Lord Lieutenant of Scotland, so with a little research, I came up with this simple, but effective card for him. A Lord Lieutenant is the Queen's personal representative within a country.

Having seen a lovely birthday card in a certain High street store, I thought, "Now there is a good idea" and I designed this card. SC users will recognise some of the background patterns used. It took quite a while to design, just to get the colours right, and the different levels of letters right, by which I mean some were printed, some pieces were cut and stuck on flat, some letters were cut out with paper stuck behind, and then some letters were raised on sticky pads. Letters which were to be printed could be a thin font, but for cut out letters the font had to be chunkier, so there was a lot to think about!

This card features a drawing I did on my Ipad using the app Paper53. My little chickens have now been used on a multitude of projects! I am dotty about spots which is one of the reasons I started my little shop for customised paper items at PaperspotUK.

Finally, I used to do a of silk painting and have a lot of scrap material lying around, so this was an effective way to use some pieces up to make a one-of-a-kind card.

Well there we go. Not sure if what I do will be good enough to join a design team, but I love my Silhouette Cameo so much, I can't help but use it every day for something or other! If I am not accepted I will simply have to continue making cards for friends and family :)

Happy crafting!

Hilary