How you can make paper lace and doilies with your Silhouette

I used these fantastic digital lace edge fonts from creationcassel.com with my Silhouette to make these fun doilies and lace.  The lace border gave this card an elegant feel.

I bet you are asking why don't I just use a store bought doily?  Well, with these fonts I can chose my own design from a large range and without having to buy an entire package of the same design and I can make it any size I want.  Also, those store bought doilies are thin and flimsy and with these fonts I can add stitching holes to a nice sturdy piece of cardstock and stitch a border.  See this previous post to learn how to add stitching holes.

Store bought doilies and lace are usually white, but with these fonts I can chose any colour I want, like this mint for example :D

 

Some helpful tips:
*Use upper case versions of the fonts, they will cut easier.
*They take a while to cut, so be patient, it's worth the wait.
*Use the toggle button on your Silhouette to get the design to wrap around a circle to make a doily.
*Some of the designs are more intricate than others so they are a bit harder to cut out, so if you want to use one of these, then make sure you enlarge it.

Now, what are you waiting for?  Hurry and grab a set today and get cutting :D

Lace Edge fonts

How to Make Your Own Handmade Christmas Card Process Stress Free

Some people find the monotonous task of making all those cards boring, but I find it calming.  I'll put on a Christmas movie and I'm able to craft on auto pilot.

The best tip I can give you is to keep it simple.  

* I don't make cards that open, it's just a postcard style card so I can cut six 4X6 card fronts out of one 12x12 piece of cardstock. 
* I use products that are easy to find in bulk, like my doilies.  I use a lot of cardstock as well.  Last year, I added rhinestones which came 100 to a sheet.
* Reusable supplies are fantastic.  I stamped my message on the back of each card.
* If you use stamps, make that one of your first steps.  It's really hard to get a crisp image once everything is already stuck on the card.
* Make it fun! Put on the Christmas carols or a holiday movie, get the kids involved. Unless they are like mine, one year they made a mess of my envelopes and I ended up addressing them all myself :)

 

If you make your own, I'd love to see!  Please share, and I can do a round up of them on the blog next week :D

I am working hard on my Planner class.  It's a class to help you make a planner that works perfectly for you. If you'd like me to send you more information as it becomes available, you can sign up here:

 

How to use Your Cut Files to make FUN shaped cards in 7 Easy Steps :D

 

 

bat owl by PPdN Designs
hockey skate by Sarah Bailey

Here are the steps to making your own shaped cards. I've broken it down for you so that even if you are a beginner die cutter, you can make shaped cards :D  I use a silhouette, but you can adapt the steps to your electronic die cutter.

 

Step 1  Decide on a cut file whose shape would make a good card and resize it.  I like to go roughly 4X6 (10x15cm) so that it will fit in a standard envelope.

tip resize all of the pieces of the design at the beginning so that they will all fit together once the card is finished.

 

Step 2  Open the TRACE window, and selecte Trace Outer Edge, to trace around only the outside edge.  Move everything else aside for now, including the piece you just traced, leaving just the traced outer edge. 

 tip You may want to rotate the image to get a straight line on top (if you want a flip up card) or on the left side (if you want a regular card) to make a nice fold.  For example, I lined up the two points of my bat's ears on the same line on the grid.

 

Step 3 In the Replicate window, choose mirror above if you want your card to flip up or mirror left if you want your card to open like a book.

tip If the tops of your images (in a flip up card) or sides (in a regular card) don't completely touch, you may want to draw lines at each end where the images meet.  I made mine big, fat and blue below so you can see better.

 

Step 4  Next, open the Trace window and trace around the outer edge again, getting both versions of the image.  Then, you can get rid of the other images.  Don't forget the little lines if you used those.

tip  You can group the pieces before tracing to make deleting them all easier.

 

Step 5 Now, you need to make a score line so your card will fold easily.  Move your image so that one fo the lighter grey lines from the grid runs right where you want your fold to be.  This makes it easier to get a straight score line.  It doesn't matter if that means putting parts of your image off of the cutting area, you can move it all later.  Open the Line Style window and choose a dashed line.  With the Draw a line tool from the menu on the left, draw your score line.

 

Step 6 Select both the score line and the complete design and group them. (See tip from step 4)

 

Step 7  Move the piece to where you'd like it and cut!  Cut other pieces from the design as usual and have fun decorating your card :D

I'm working on my Christmas cards next! Keep an eye out for them coming here soon, along with something fun that I have in the works!! :D