Weddingbee Blog

The first part of this tutorial can be found here.

Step 10: Make it small! I don’t need a book half the size of an 8.5″x11″ sheet, so I grabbed one of the group’s little corner squares and dragged to make it smaller.

Step 11: Make it safe! To know where I could place it on my page, as I’m printing and cutting, I clicked on the ‘Registration Marks’ button (second in from the right on the top) and checked the ‘show Registration Marks’ box. Don’t place anything over the red lines, or in the greyed-out areas.

Step 12: Make text! The text icon is the little A on the left-hand side. Type your text, changing font and size on the right.

Step 13: Fill text! This step eluded me for a while when I was first learning the machine. First, if you want your text to print, make sure you make it ‘no cut’ (see step 6). Does your text show up as an outline of the letters, like the photo in step 12? Click on ‘Fill Colour’ (it looks like a paint bucket) and click on a colour - I used black. Now the text will print like proper text, not outlines.

Step 14: Make it cut! To check your settings and send it to the Silhouette, click on the little icon that looks like the Silhouette’s blade cartridge (3rd in from the right, where the arrow is pointing). Just follow the prompts from there! Remember to tell it what type of paper you’re using, and change the blade cap if you need to.

You don’t get to see that particular finished shape, because I was lazy and didn’t clean all the old bits of paper off my sticky mat before putting the new sheet on (I cut a really intricate shape as a test, which left hundreds of tiny pieces stuck). That made some parts of my cardstock higher than others, and not adhere completely, and the book cover popped out once it was cut and jammed the machine. Oops! (Step 15: pick all the bits off your cutting mat!)

And that is how the Silhouette works!

I’m so glad I purchased this instead of a Cricut, because I don’t need cartridges and it can use any font on my computer. That said, Cricut’s newest toy is the Cricut Imagine, which prints and cuts, but there is the cartridge problem. I prefer the freedom of Silhouette Studio for creating my shapes, and the shape store where lots of different designers have shapes for me to buy. I think I will get more use (for wedding things, and hopefully other things too) out of the Silhouette. I had researched the machine before getting engaged, after all. The impending wedding just gave me the kick to buy it. I’ve promised myself it won’t be a wedding-crafts-only purchase!

Would you consider buying a tool like this just for your wedding? Maybe sell it used afterward? Make holiday cards from now until the end of time to justify the purchase?

P.S. If you want to see larger versions of any of these images, they can also be found here.