Tutorial: Creating Custom Titles With The Silhouette SD

One of my most favorite things about owning a electronic die cutting machine is having the ability to create my own custom titles for my pages. I have really been doing this a lot in the past month, and I thought I would share my process

I’m working on a layout called Shutterbug, right now that want to make a custom title for, so I thought I would use it as an example here

1. I have to come up with a snazzy title. In this case, my title is just pure fact.

2. If I’m going to make my own title on my Silhouette I decide if I want to make it with a font, or write it out myself. In most cases I just can’t get a font to look exactly the way I want so instead I just write it out. I also feel like this gives me a little more of a personal feel to the page. Usually I just write it out a few times, until I get something I feel like looks nice and will fit well with the design of the page.

* most of the time if I have a title that has multiple words I only do one word in the die cut, it seems to stand out more to me that way.

* I could also do this on my wacom tablet, but I haven’t quite got the hang of the pressure sensitivity and such to make it actually look like I wrote it. ;)

3. From here I usually scan my handwritten word into my computer, I have an all-in-one style printer that came with special software for scanning various types of images, but I find it most helpful to do it through Picasa, which is a free program provided by Google.

4. I usually crop out any unnecessary things picked up on the scan, if some unwanted little marks come up in the scan too close to the word I usually just open up my photoshop elements and use the eraser tool to get rid of them. If you are using Picasa to crop as well, you must remember to save your cropped file before opening it in Silhouette Studio. Otherwise it will be an 8.5X11 in. image.

*This is where Silhouette Studio comes into play. but you can also do a similar thing on Make the Cut, which I know how to do, if anyone wants to learn how to do it you can just email me.

Before we get into the technical stuff I think I should tell you what each button is/does!

(click on the image to see it full size)

5. In the Silhouette Studio Software, I open up my scanned file.

As you can see I do this quite a bit!

* Here’s what it looks like after it is opened:

6. I open up the Trace window, which allows you to trace your image. it is fairly easy to do, but it seems like it took me forever to find!

*Once You have drawn your Trace box around your image it will look something like this

7. while using the trace tool, you have to play around with the High & Low Pass Filters, Threshold, & Scale… This was just a guessing game for me, I just increase the High Pass Filter mainly, until the entire image is filled with yellow! Like this:

8. After the entire image is filled with yellow, all you have to do is press the Trace Button on the Right side of the window.

*This is what it looks like when it is traced, you can’t really tell from the screenshot, but there is a THIN red line around the word. All you have to do is delete the original scan image from your workspace.

* Here’s what it will look like once you’ve deleted the blacked in image:

This is going to be what your cut image will look like!

9. Now it’s time to cut! Make sure your image is the correct size for your project and then click the Send to Silhouette Button

*This is what the Cutting Window will look like!

*Make sure your Cut Setting are correct for the type of medium you are cutting on, so for my example I’m cutting my image out of a scrap of Core’Dinations Cardstock, which is pretty thick. So For my settings I used the default Thick Cardstock Settings:

* The settings are Speed: 3 & Thickness: 33, using the Pink Blade Cover!

10. Now it’s time to cut! Load up your mat into your Silhouette and when you are on the Cut window, there is clickable link for #5, click that and it will send the image to your Silhouette to cut!

* This is what it looks like as you are cutting

Here’s my finished custom image title:

I hope you found this tutorial easy to follow and of course useful!

Lately

Lately, we’ve been hanging out inside. It’s been rainy here.

I’ve been missing my dad. He’s in florida on a personal vacay and its becoming too long of a vacay for me! lol. although I have talked to him on the phone EVERY SINGLE DAY since he’s been gone, (sometimes more than once per day), it’s not the same as seeing him and getting to hug him. I admit it, I’m a dad’s girl.

This photo was taken back in 2009, in the LITTLE town that he is currently in.

Mo is all healed up from being spayed. So glad about that.

my desk has been exceptionally messy, but to me that means something right has been happening. I used to be a clean scrapbooker. I could hangout in a 15 in square and be happy. now, I have about a 3 foot mess around me. lol. I think I need to thank my wonderful friend Megan, from The Green Room for that one.

here’s some proof of the previously mentioned statement:

I’ve been working on various layouts with new stuff from CHA and my “our 6th year” album. which I shall post more about at a later date. but here’s how I’m keeping up with the everyday occurrences and journaling of sorts:

my before mentioned friend and I went to Ikea last weekend. and that was an adventure. I swear Ryan and I have been to Ikea countless amount of times, but we never have that much fun on the ride home.

Ryan has been bitten by the Halo bug yet again. So I have been hearing a lot of fake gun noises, alien voices, and random cracks about cheating and what not. it’s just like old times. I admit I have been playing with him. I know I’m a geek too.

it’s officially spring break here. although this weekend hasn’t felt like spring, I’m hoping the week picks up on the fact that it should indeed be feeling like spring. here are my plans for spring break:

1. scrapbook, and do plenty of it! I’m going to a crop on the 12th at my LSS. I can’t wait until April when Megan can come too.

2. eat cupcakes, I plan to make Ryan take me to The Blue Eyed Daisy, in Serenbe nonetheless, to have a sweet treat or two. Hopefully they have some red velvet. I’m obsessed.

3. take the cats for a few outside walks, it’s been way too cold to take them outside for any long period of time, they are so used to being inside, that when we do take them out they just shiver and I have a hard time seeing shivering babies.

4. bike rides, we’ve been riding bikes lately.

5. find the waterfall, so if you know me, you know I’m slightly obsessed with Serenbe. Ryan and I live so close that we visit frequently, especially since we are no where close to having the ability to live there! but last time we were there we checked out the community bulletin board to see what was going to be coming up, and there were photos of people at a waterfall… I love a good slow shutter waterfall photo! So when I got home I stalked flickr streams with photos from Serenbe, and there were several with photos from this mysterious waterfall that I have never seen. hmm… so we shall partake on an adventure to find the waterfall, Maybe we should take the GPS and set it on walking just incase we get lost. that is a thought.

other than these not so concrete plans, we shall just live life and see what happens. that’s always the most fun, right?

Everyday

So my life is totally ordinary.

Ryan and I pretty much do the same thing everyday.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we both have class.

Most off days we like to have a good cup of coffee, so we go to Starbucks.

When we are at home Ryan usually plays some video games while I catch up on old television shows on Netflix, while doing some scrapbooking.

When we decide to go on a date, its usually a day date, and we do things we both love. Like, go to Ikea, do some shopping, eat some Cracker Barrel, go to Starbucks, or go to Barnes & Noble to read books and magazines.

Our cats, well they are cats, so they eat and sleep most of the day.

We cook dinner together almost every night. Lately we've been riding our bikes about 2 miles everyday, which has been awesome. But while all of this sounds boring, I love it.

(yummy homemade pizza)

Our life hardly changes but its all of these little things that I love about my life. I get to spend time with my best friend everyday. I appreciate everything that I have been given and I love where my life is now.

But it still doesn't make me less excited about our future together.

What ever it may bring.