I hope that you all aren’t tired of my Silhouette tutorials. I’m pretty excited about these DIY Valentine stickers. One of my goals for the year is to use my Silhouette more, so that it’s not just sitting on my desk taking up space. There really is so much you can do with it, and it’s been fun exploring. While I have already shared how to make stickers using a predetermined shape, today I wanted show how you can “cut” an object out of a drawing you have done, then use it as a graphic within Silhouette studio.
Step one: Design your object
To start off create the image you want to turn into a graphic. You can paint, draw, water color, or whatever else you like to do. Once done scan it to your computer. as a png or jpeg file.
Step Two: Open it in Silhouette Studio
Next you want to open up your image in Silhouette Studio. Simply go to file–> open, then find your image.
Step Three: Cut around the image
Once you have it opened, you need to cut out the image (in my case the cactus). So you will go to the knife tool on the left hand side of the screen, then sure outline and curve are selected from the top.
Step four: Click to cut
Using your mouse click around the image. AS you can see there is a red line which is where the image will be cut out. I usually zoom in a little, and try to stay slightly on the inside of the image so that I don’t get any white around the edges.
Step five: Delete background
Now you can move the image out of the way the way and delete the background. You are now left with just your image to use how you would like.
Step six: Add words to your DIY Valentine Stickers if you would like
To add words click on the A on the left side of the screen. Then from the top pull down menu you can chose your font.
Step seven: change the color
Change the color of the words in the upper left hand corner. You will eventually use your printer to print the stickers before using the Silhouette to cut them out.
Step eight: Group together and create offset
Next select both the image and words and group together. Then click on the offset button (the star) on the right side of the screen. Click the offset choice and adjust the distance as needed. You can see that there is now a line around the image and the words. Click apply. Once you have done that click the outline, and change the color (in the upper left left hand corner again) to something that is not in your image. I choose orange.
Step nine: Add square around
Next up make a square (use the polygon button the the left side) to draw a square around the cactus. Make it a different color from the cactus outline, and from any colors in you pictures. I chose blue.
Step ten: add registration marks and fill page with your DIY Valentine Stickers
Next you want to add registration marks to your page by hitting m on your keyboard. These are the areas you don’t want to place anything in. Adjust you image and then fill the page. You can do this by clicking the replicate button on the right side, and hitting fill page.
Step eleven: Ready to print!
Now that your page if filled go ahead and print your stickers using sticker paper and your printer.
Step twelve: Cut the outline around the cactus(kiss cut) with your Silhouette
Next you will want to click over to the send button at the top right of the screen. From there you want to click the tab that says line. You will be doing two separate cuts, based on the color of the line (which is why the outline and the square had to be different). Here I have just the orange picked. For material I have sticker paper, I want it to cut, then I used the default settings. Then send the stickers to your machine to cut. This will do the kiss cut which means it cuts the sticker paper, but not the back. Once it cut, do not take them off the mat, you will be sending them through again.
Step thirteen: Cut around the sticker
Now you want to uncheck the orange line, and check the blue line. Once again make sure the action is cut. You then want to change the cut settings since you want to make sure that the blade goes through the paper and the backing. My setting are as follows:
Blade depth: 3
Force: 29
Speed: 5
You may need to adjust this depending on how thick your sticker paper is. But once you are set, send it through again. Now you will see that each cactus is it’s own sticker.
Step fourteen: You’re done!
Look how cute your stickers turned out!
Look at how cute they turned out!
If you are more a fan of a video tutorial I have that for you too. Please be gentle, I am still new to the YouTube tutorials. 🙂
I hope you found this DIY Valentine Stickers tutorial helpful. 🙂 Do you like making your own things? If I can figure out how to share these for you to use at home I totally will. Are there any other types of stickers you’d like to see? Anything else about the Silhouette you’d like to know about?