Mickey and Donald Silhouette shapes

My friend and I got together last week and attempted to get some internet pictures to work for freezer paper shirts using my Silhouette cutter. We ran into a major problem when we were stuck with low resolution files which equals a jagged looking cut. No bueno.

We ended up printing out the picture on a full sheet and then I smoothed the pixelated edges with a sharpie. It wasn't a perfect job, but it served the purpose well enough.
I then scanned those images in and made them high contrast black and white in photoshop.

All you have to do it put them into the Silhouette Studio and trace them. Make sure that you get all of the black to turn a solid yellow and then choose trace and voila! It worked beautifully!
I'll have to steal a picture of how cute her shirts turned out.

Thanks to Dana of MADE for pointing us in the direction of this picture that she used for her adorable onsies.

This Donald face was a coloring page that I enlarged and erased so it was just his face.

And some words to go with Donald (make sure you reverse them if needed depending on your application)

If you happen to want any of these files that work well with a Silhouette (aka NOT low resolution!) and can't pull them directly off of my blog in a good resolution, please send me an email through my profile page or look for me on Facebook and I can email them to you!

Magnet Frame using a vinyl stencil

Dang it I need to remember the before and after pictures!
When I was cleaning out my craft closet, this magnet board with a wood frame was sitting in there, so I pulled it out and worked on it since it would be a "quick" project.

It was previously kind of splatter painted hot pink and black. I slapped some grey acrylic paint on and was going to add a touch of yellow afterward. No big deal.

But then I thought about a lattice/trefoil design. And my silhouette. And the vinyl I had just sitting there.
But because it was already gray, but I wanted the design in yellow, I added about 6 hours onto my project time. Here is the end result! I'm happy with it, but wish it would not have taken so long.

To make this, I found an image of some fabric online and then used that on my Silhouette machine to cut my pattern out. With the pattern, the lines are the positive space (all hooked together in a single shape) and the trefoil shapes are the negative space (individual pieces). Ideally, when you do a stencil you want to paint your object what color you want your positive space to be first and then you put the stencil on and paint over the negative space with what color you want that to be.

I had already painted my frame gray, which is what color I wanted the negative trefoil shape to be. I thought I would just stick the trefoil shapes back in and then peel off the lines so those would be left for the yellow paint. This took a LOT of time and I don't think I got as clean of a design (which I don't really care about). I should have gone back and painted the whole thing yellow and then stuck the lines (positive space) vinyl on and pained over the yellow with gray to fill in the negative trefoil shaped spaces. Oh well... cest la vie.

ahh! Look at all that imperfection! 

Paper Ornaments / Gift Tags

I made 30 of these in a couple of hours and love how they turned out!

I just love those ones that look like Christmas lights!

I used my Silhouette and this pattern from Better Homes and Gardens. Their ornaments are way more embelleshed than mine. I just like to make things as simple and easy as possible.

source: better homes and gardens

I used a sheet of red paper, a sheet of green, a sheet of red with raised bumps (bazzill basics), a sheet of green with raised bumps, and a 1/2 sheet of yellow with raised bumps. My Silhouette had problems cutting all the way through the thick paper, but that was probably compounded by the fact that I lost my cap for thicker media and had not gotten a new blade yet. I had to do a LOT of hand cutting which made this project take MUCH longer than I wanted.
I wish I had had the time to make those 2 on the upper right look better. I had to cut out the centers to use on the ornaments on the bottom row. Ideally they would have a yellow or opposite color circle layered on top of the scalloped circle shape.

If you'd like the files with the simplified shapes all laid out to use on your Silhouette, let me know and I'll send them over to you! Much easier than separating all of the little shapes and duplicating and arranging everything.