Hi everyone! Traci here and I have a fun and easy tutorial to share with you today. Have you ever been working on a project and didn’t have the perfect embellishment you wanted? Happens to me all the time! I’m a big fan of chipboard embellishments — I love the dimension they give to a project. So today I’m going to show you how easy it is to create your own chipboard embellishments with your silhouette machine using Lori’s fun shapes and digital papers.
The first step is really fun — go through all of Lori’s cute shapes and pick out a handful of fun designs.
These will be print and cut shapes so be sure to size your mat to 8.5×11.
Since we are going to print these out, we want to “fill” them with colors and patterns. Go to the “Fill Pattern” window and with your shape highlighted, click on some different colors and patterns for each shape. Lori has some great digital papers too. You can find them at Snap Click Supply. If you purchase and download them to your computer, you can drag them right into your shapes. Many of her digital papers match her Echo Park designs so you can create embellishments that go perfectly with your paper!
I’m using Lori’s “Sweet Memories” papers for my embellishments.
For more information on importing digital papers into your Silhouette software, check out this tutorial.
Tip: If you try to fill a shape that has a space cut out (for example, the ticket with the star above) the fill pattern may cover the entire shape, including the star. If this happens, just right click on the shape and click on “make compound path”. This will usually fix that problem.
If you have any shapes with printed words (see my banner shapes), you will also need to increase the line thickness for the lettering. Just highlight the word, click on the “Line Style” window, and increase the thickness. I set mine to 1.25 show that the words print clearly.
Once all of your shapes are filled with pattern, color, or digital paper, it’s time to print. Be sure to click on the Registration Marks window and “Show Reg Marks”. You may also have to move your shapes around a bit to make sure they all fit within the registration marks on your paper.
Now that you have everything printed, send it through your Silhouette to cut everything out.
Next, cut the same shapes out of Silhouette chipboard two times (I like the thickness of two layers of chipboard, but one layer would work too).
Glue all of your shapes to their matching chipboard pieces and voila! Adorable chipboard embellishments!
Happy crafting!!
Shapes:
Great idea Lori!!! I’m definitely LOVING my Portrait that I won from you!!! I already told my hubby that I need to upgrade ASAP LOL!!
Hugs,
Kerri
Awesome! I just won a portrait recently, I’ll definitely be blog stalking for tutorials like this one. Thanks!
How thick is the chipboard? I have a Silhouette SD and it won’t even cut 105# or textured card stock. I’ve tried double cutting but my machine sometimes “skips” . . . I get so made when I hear it make that lurching sound, but hope to have a new machine soon. Any hints?
Gail — try Silhouette’s chipboard. Remember to adjust the settings in the Cut window for “Silhouette Brand Chipboard”. Cuts beautifully every time 🙂 It is thinner than some chipboard so that’s why I cut it twice and layer the pieces.
These are super cute! Love the easy tutorial. Thank you!
These turned out awesome Traci! Very cool! 🙂
What a neat idea. I just bought some of the Silhouette chipboard and will definitely be using this technique. Thanks so much.
These came out so awesome, awesome tutorial!!
Thanks for the great hint. I want to do a steam punk layout and want to make a bunch of layering pieces and I think this will work great.
This is amazing! You are so creative. Thank you so much for the tutorial!
Can you please tell me what paper you printed them on and what printer you used. I’m looking to get a new printer and I love how they turned out. Thank you!