Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Find new and exciting ways to use patterns on Silhouette Studio Designer Edition

The fun I had in my previous posting using my pattern library to make washi tape has led me to another useful use of patterns "and" Inkjet Printable vinyl.  As you know, I have an Epson 13" wide format printer which I am loving, Workforce WF-7610.  I have not done a lot of vinyl work, just a few things made over the holidays as gifts using vinyl I had had but never used before.  I decided that if I were going to use vinyl again, and did not want to have a huge supply of all the various colors, I would look into getting Inkjet Printable vinyl which I could color anyway I wanted before cutting.  I found this 12" x 24" inkjet printable (PERMANENT) vinyl here.  So I ordered 4 sheets (if I cut in half, I have 8 12" x 12" sheets---for $15.80 plus $6.95 shipping --total $22.75  comes out to $2.84 per 12x12" sheet)  It is a lovely matte finish.  I have been having such fun adding interesting patterns to my pattern library, some are my painted papers, some are great images found here and there.

Now to put all that to work.  My smart phone is a Nexus 4 which I love,  I also love the leather case I have for it, see here.  However, I often misplace the phone in the house and because it is black, I often can't see it, so I have used my Device Manager to make it ring while I scurry from room to room looking for it.  So I tested a tiny bit of leftover vinyl from those holiday projects I made and found the vinyl sticks nicely to the leather.

So I made a template for both the front and back of the leather case, one having appropriate holes for camera and speaker openings, one which covers whole side with no openings.  Here is a screenshot of my template:
Then the fun began as I filled these templates with the various patterns I have added to my pattern library, see previous posting and video on how I fill objects with patterns.  I couldn't stop, this was so much fun.  I have to be honest, my first template was just the solid without the cutouts for the back.  I thought I could easily cut out the areas after sticking it to my case, which I did, but a much nicer job can be done if you get the placement and template working with the cutouts.  For one thing, you can "pan" or scale your design pattern in exact position where the holes won't matter.  I will, therefore share with you the printout of my vinyl showing only the full front templates as shown below and I have annotated the picture to show you another mistake I made
I also could have moved the registration marks to allow for wider print/cut area, so you can learn from my mistakes.  Well, I used the black cat ( I love my black cat named "Pepper"), and that graphic certainly makes my phone visible when I misplace it again.


What is nice, Is that I can change out the vinyl patterns when it suits me, The only thing is I keep thinking up new ideas for decorating my phone. 
 Here are some more I have been playing with.
 and here is a screenshot of some of the patterns and I have lots more that have been added to "my Patterns" .  Hope you are inspired to try some of these ideas.



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