Customizing a Shape Using the Knife Tool with Kathy

Hi Everyone, it’s Kathy today with a tutorial to show you how to use the knife tool to customize a shape for your project.  I have to start this tutorial with a confession.  I am a crazy cat lady.  I saw a similar item to my project on Pinterest, wanted to purchase it only to find that it was only sold in the UK and it was sold out.  I was determined to have it so I came up with a way to make it myself… take a peek…

How cute is this??  Luckily my daughter was happy to be my model!  This was really pretty easy to do… I started by loading Lori’s Black Cat Design into Silhouette Studio.

 I clicked on the knife tool on the left side tool bar. Using the tool I drew a line across the design where I wanted to cut it.

You can see that the line I created divided the cat, leaving the top half of the face as a stand alone design.

I deleted the portions of the design I didn’t want, then resized the top of the cat’s head to fit my umbrella panel.  I changed my cut settings to vinyl and cut my design.

You can cut vinyl without using a mat, but I usually use my mat so that I can use smaller pieces of the vinyl.  I cut out the cat face, then weeded out the pieces I didn’t want.

Next, I applied the transfer paper to my design and made sure it was down well, eliminating air bubbles using my scraper tool.

I peeled the transfer paper off, bringing the design with it.  The transfer paper makes it easy to apply the vinyl design all at once, exactly where you want it.  I applied it to my umbrella, using my scraper again to eliminate air bubbles, then peeled off the transfer paper, leaving just the design.

And voila!  A crazy cat lady umbrella!

That’s it for me today, thanks for stopping by to peek!

5 Comments

  1. Thanks for this tutorial! I’ve never used the knife tool – what a time saver. I’ve used the subtract method or even the eraser, but never the knife. Thanks!

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