Silhouette SD In Use

It's taken a bit of time to get used to the software - I'm not the most photoshop literate - so I haven't made any full Silhouette cards until now.  Yesterday I created a lily of the valley design (2 leaves, 3 stems and 16 flowers), cut them out and made a card.  I also cut a frame for the inside birthday congratulations.

So, how does the Silhouette work?  You create/open/download your design, resize it and lay out the pieces you want cut (pieces you want cut from other papers can be put off to the side of the cutting area).

Load your media (ie, put the paper onto the sticky carrier plastic and put it under the runners on the machine),

then send the design to the machine once you've specified your settings.  In this picture you can see the green frame I'm cutting, while at the bottom, the center of the frame (in purple) won't be cut.

Cut your shapes, peel them off the backing and use.  The knife will score into the backing sheet (you can see the frame in the plastic if you look closely), so be sure to use the correct one (along with the correct knife and cutting settings).

And here's the card I made:

And if you're curious about what it sounds/looks like when cutting, here's a short example:

Silhouette SD - Digital Cutting Tool

I've been busy lately and haven't had the chance to blog about the awesome birthday present my husband got me: the Silhouette SD.  It's a craft cutting system that allows you to design your own shapes to cut.  This means you can cut ANYTHING you can draw (or find a shape file for, scan in and trace, etc.).  You can resize shapes, use any font on your computer and more.

So, what's in the box?  You get the machine, 2 cutting mats (for different thicknesses of materials), 3 blades (again, for different thicknesses of materials), the design software (now Mac compatible!), an instructional video on CD-Rom, 48 designs (with 50 included in the design software to get you started), a start up guide book and a $10 giftcard for their online store (for buying designs).  And all your cords (power & usb).

While not particularly noisy it's also not a quiet machine.  It's surprisingly melodic as it cuts designs.  They come out crisp and professional - just watch how you reuse pre cut paper (I've tried to reuse larger paper from which I've cut designs only to have it catch while being pulled into the machine, knocking it out of synch).