Dragonfly wings n things

Experimenting with different approaches to shimmery, glittery dragonfly wings:

The dies I use for this I bought here:  

The aluminum metal tape can be bought here, although, you can also get at local hardware stores.

More pictures, etc:

Another Sketch, Cut, then Color

This is the image (from) Hungry Jpeg, of course, that I thought I would attempt today.  Without my printer, but still using my Online Label full sheet labels.  I traced this image and did a little fiddling using the eraser tool to get rid of a lot of small bits I didn't want. This is what I got to trace:

of course my trusty uniball pen ready to use in my holder:

the results, after sketching, put in my silhouette blade, settings, white sticker paper, blade at 8

Now to color:

using the image on my computer before trace as my reference

carefully remove finished flower and placed on wax paper

now to plan how i might use this flower, a preview, i may stick flower to cardstock in same cut file, then add foam to back to raise flower up a bit, Hope all who sruggle with printer issues ,not to mention cost of ink!, This is another alternative.

Printer not cooperating, BUT there's another way Sketch, cut and color!

I have loved my Epson Printer WF7610 until for some unknown reason the black ink cartridge wouldn't dispense ink, I did find a workaround, but it is not perfect (use glossy photo paper for setting regardless what paper you are using) seemed to work, although much slower.  Plus there is a technical reason why this is not ideal, but I won't go into that here.

Instead, I have been playing with my trusty pens, using the internal offset function to fill in designs and text, then inserting a ball point pen into the white holder thingie I got from Amazon when I ordered these:

I think I paid about $9.99 at the time and I notice they are $7.99 now.  Note that the white pen holder included at the top is the same fitting as you see in blue and gray, you can just unscrew that and use it in your Cameo (I do not have the latest Cameo.)  The white fitting works great on the Signo Uni Ball pens (on one I had to put one round of painter's tape around the pen to get a solid fit which then fits into the holder on my cameo.  See this video showing sketching design on full page label paper:

See postings here: http://paulinesstuff.blogspot.com/2016/09/i-love-my-cameo-sketch-with-pen-and.html

So after this was sketched, I used a bit of watercolor to fill in flowers, but I still wanted black sketch to show:

As you can see, I created several other stickers this same way, using some watercolor and markers really a lot of fun.  I have found that pulling them off the label sheet after watercoloring, it is best to put them on kitchen wax paper, at first I tried freezer paper, but after a bit that great adhesive on back of stickers stuck a little too much and would, over time, I think make them difficult to remove to use on projects.  Kitchen wax paper provides the perfect storage and they release easily, plus you can preview deigns on projects before you actually commit to sticking them since wax paper is see through.  

Some other sticker I have made again using this same sketch with pen, then color with watercolor technique:

More than one way to .............

can't finish this saying (since I am a cat lover), but you know what I am talking about.  Thanks to Shakeya Levell-Pericles who commented on last video, there is another way to accomplish same thing.  I run through it in the video below "and" show how to insert pattern instead of color on one of the balloons, plus combine them to make another cut file.  Several tips in this video as well as I run into some unexpected issues and show you ways to correct them.  Hope it is useful

Quick tutorial and explanation of how to get rid of black box

I just did a quick video on why and how to get rid of black box around items you colorize in Silhouette Studio, primarily in my case for cut and print (stickers of course).  I have tried to isolate this technique so it is not buried in a longer video.  The link to the bundle I got this image from is here: http://bit.ly/2kStSjX

Digital Flower Arranging in Silhouette Studio for sticker making

I will probably do several of these videos showing how to combine elements to make new images, in this case floral arrangements.  Through this process, you learn a lot, most I have included in previous videos, but it is through repetition of the process we get adept at working with the wonderful tools in Silhouette Studio.  Hope you enjoy it:

The Big Floral Bundle by Hungry JPEG is here: http://bit.ly/2kStSjX

Faux Quilting in Silhouette Studio using September Bundle

For those of you who purchased the re-release of Hungry JPEG September Bundle, you might be able to play along with me while I demonstrate how to do even more with these images.  The September bundle will only be available for a short time and has so many goodies in it.  You can use the tips/techniques I cover in this video for many images which you might already have, so have fun:

I quickly reviewed this September bundle last year when it first came out and you can see that posting here:

http://paulinesstuff.blogspot.com/2016/09/hungry-jpeg-september-bundle-and-making.html

Stay tuned for another quick (I hope) video on how to get even more from your images, I will be using the "Pumpkin Season" graphics again from the September Bundle, but wait till you see how I use this image, you won't believe it came from the fall season images when you see it, hint, if you are a cat lover, you might especially love it.  

Free watercolor background Patterns and how to use them in Silhouette Studio

This week Hungry JPEG is offering "free" lovely watercolor background patterns, you can see them here:  

I have created a quick video showing how to download, extract (unzip), get them into Silhouette Studio library, and use them for print and cut projects.

Here is a quick pic of them:

Run don't walk to take advantage of this opportunity

I emailed the wonderful folks at Hungry JPEG regarding some of my most favorite and hugely economical bundles that had expired.  At the time, they said they could not make them available and I was so disappointed.  It often takes me some time when I make a purchase to use the items and be able to post about them in a timely manner.  I hate it when the bundles are no longer available when I post how I have used them.  I am happy to announce my ALL TIME FAVORITE Mia Charo Bundle is now available here.

 I bought it in February 2016 and it is my favorite.  It is only $15 and if you like florals, banners, and much, much more you will love this bundle, if you tweet, you can also get 10% more off.  Here are the links to my blog postings where I have used graphics from the Mia Charo bundle.  In one post I apologized that it was no longer available, BUT now it is for 30+ days.

http://paulinesstuff.blogspot.com/2016/09/pop-up-card-using-stickers_1.html

http://paulinesstuff.blogspot.com/2016/07/ready-to-make-more.html

http://paulinesstuff.blogspot.com/2016/07/another-card.html

http://paulinesstuff.blogspot.com/2016/07/another-card-and-another-sticker-sheet.html

They also have made the September bundle available again here:

I posted about this bundle here: http://paulinesstuff.blogspot.com/2016/09/hungry-jpeg-september-bundle-and-making.html

I will be soon making a video on "Flower arranging in Silhouette Studio" and will use floral elements from these and other bundles.  The video will show how to get the graphics onto mat, how to trace, crop to create a nice tight cut graphic, how to get more from each graphic using shader effect tools, and how to combine many elements for a new bouquet, etc.  plus lots of tips.   Just playing with this flower arranging  will show you how much can be done with the software.  

Stickers made from my pics of pottery items I have made

I don't know why I haven't thought about this before, but this has been fun.  I have experienced lots of people pinning my hearts to their Pinterest Boards, so it caused me to go look at them again.  My Pinterest Album for these is here.

So I decided to do a video on how I was able to put these images on stickers and thought I would share it with you all.
Here is video I made in creating the stickers:

After printing, I was able to cut on my Cameo, see this video here:

and here are the stickers ready to use:

Time to Crank out some Christmas Stickers

I just love these, don't you?

You can find them HERE

And I am getting these too: 

Another exciting bundle from Hungry JPEG

I recently purchased two more of the offerings from Hungry JPEG.  I have written, in general, many times before,  here and here, and here about how wonderful their bundles are, in value and quality.   I am sometimes tempted to buy some of the individual offerings, and I do, but the "bundles" are the absolute best bargains ever.  Let me talk about the one I am working on now.  It is called The Hipster Graphic Pack and is packed with so many wonderful graphics.  This package is only $19 and if you have a twitter account and tweet, price drops to $17.10.  As explained in my previous posts, if you are from USA, best to pay with paypal directly from your checking account so you don't get caught up in VAT (Value Added Tax) which might get added if you use a credit card.  Also, the downloads are very large zip files that need to be extracted.  Sometimes, I use a batch processing utility which is a part of a free software program called IRFANVIEW, and I spoke about that in this video and also showed how I trace the images and use the Silhouette Studio software to work with these graphics.



Well, now onto the Hipster Graphic Pack.  

Here is a little video (well maybe longer than I intended)  looking at the wonderful graphics in this bundle  Remember, when you buy these bundles you get complete Commercial License to use in products you make and sell, and the files you purchase are downloadable from their site forever.





Here is the sticker on a card "work in progress" to give you an idea how they look on colored cardstock

I love my Cameo, sketch with pen and cut on full page labels

Sometimes I am not very happy with the results that I get from my printer when it's printing very fine detailed text, in black on white cardstock. Perhaps it is because I'm using the back feed on my printer, perhaps it's because there is an overspray from the ink in the cartridge.

 Rather than trying to figure out and test all of these I recently decided to just combine using a rollerball pen as a sketch function to get the text and frame drawn around the text.  What I was trying to do is get labels that I could stick on the backs of my handmade cards and other things I make.
I love using full page labels to make my stickers, See postings here, and here, and here.   I get mine from online labels and it's very inexpensive and rather than use the ink in my printer to do this I decided to let the cameo do the work with a rollerball pen.  I wrapped a little washi tape and then covered with a foam pen holder (cheapies from Dollar store) which I had cut to fit pen, then inserted into regular cameo blade holder and adjusted so when the mechanism came down, the pen would make its mark.  I thought it was amazing that such small text came out so well, better than my printer.  The font I used is one I got in one of my old Hungry JPEG bundles, called Azurra Script--

The following pictures show you the results and I am quite happy with them what I did was turn on and off the various elements that I wanted to either sketch with the rollerball pen and then turn those elements to "No Cut"  when it finished, IMPORTANT, do not unload the mat!   I had a slight offset around the frame that was made "uncut" in the sketching phase, and after that was completed, I set the text and frame to "NoCut" and set the offset line to Cut, and using the Silhouette Settings for white sticker paper, and adding the ratchet blade set at 8, I then "sent to silhouette" (remember, mat was never unloaded),   The pictures below show the results

Cutting Foam on Silhouette Cameo, whole process from design, setup, cut, taping and separating positive from negative

Several people have asked to see the whole process, I finally managed to get it together to show how I do this.  This is the video showing whole process except using stamp which I may do another time.

Pop up card using stickers

Thanks to Lindsay Weirich's cute stamped pop up card, I decided to try one using stickers, here is my version