DIY: #Adulting Canvas Bag

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post but all ideas and opinions are my own. :)

Everyone who knows me know that I am a fontaholic - to the point where my husband shakes his head everytime I we're out and I tell him 'I know that font!'. I definitely have more than a handful, and I play favorites every now and then. When I received a ton of fonts from Fontbundles.Net, Overture quickly became one of my flavors of the month. I had to whip up this bag for myself to hold my groceries (I know I've made a ton but one can never have enough, right?)

Why #adulting for my latest grocery bag? Well, it's a joke between my husband and I. The first time we had to buy toilet paper together, we were like 'We're so adulting right now'. So yeah, we say it now everytime we do some grocery-shopping. 

Supplies:

• Silhouette Portrait (optional, but highly recommended!)
• Flocked Heat Transfer Vinyl
• Glitter Heat Transfer Vinyl
• Large Canvas Bag
• Handwriting-Styled font (I used Overture fron Fontbundles.Net)

Iron your canvas bag. Take out the kinks and folded lines by using the 'Steam' option on your iron.

If you have a Silhouette, type your word onto Silhouette Studio, weld the letters together and size to your preferred width. I wanted a big print, so I sized mine around 12" wide. I also selected the no-mat option as I wasn't going to use a mat to cut my heat transfer. Feed the heat transfer material glossy side down, and then weed by removing the negative parts of the image when you are done. 

IF YOU DON'T HAVE A SILHOUETTE:

You can still do this! Type your word onto Microsoft word, resize as big as how you would like your word to be, print and then cut around. Use this template and trace onto the heat transfer (making sure you are tracing on the right side of the heat transfer so your letters come out in the right direction).

I was feeling fancy so I used Flocked Heat Transfer Vinyl for my #adulting bag... and then it got even fancier when I added some more words in Gold Glitter Heat Transfer Vinyl!

I played around with the font on Adobe Illustrator and tweaked it so it to lay right with the other words. When you're done - lay out the words to see if they fit right. I love a good handwritten look and this definitely tickles my fancy!

Center it on the bag and iron or press. Peel off the backing and you are done!

I definitely love how this one turned out! Black and glitter gold go so well together and I am in love. The extra texture that the flocking brings to the table is just awesome - velvety to the touch. And of course, Overture is amazing! 

And a bonus for my readers only - get a discount when you buy any font or bundle on Fontbundles.Net with coupon code STRAWBERRY10! Check out weekly deals and freebies for fonts over at Fontbundles.Net (I totally love Crafter's Revolution that's expiring tomorrow - grab it while you can!). Are you a fontaholic?

 

"

DIY Friendship Etched Pendants with the Silhouette Curio

This post is sponsored by Silhouette America but all opinions and ideas are my own. :)

One of my close friends from a few years back asked me if I could stamp some puzzle pendant pieces for her to give to her class friends before they all go off to college. The accommodating person that I am, I said yes, but then she wanted additional things on it - on the back of the pendants, she wanted a word on each pendant that would form a sentence when all the pendants are linked together. I loved the idea, but with the stamped letter in front, there was no way I would be able to make a clean stamp on the back as well - we brainstormed on what we could do about it, and then I remembered - I can etch with my Silhouette Curio! 

Supplies:

• Silhouette Curio
• Silhouette Stippling & Etching Tool
• Silhouette Ratchet Blade
• Metal charms
• Contact paper

Set your mat stack to 6 and adhere contact paper, sticky side up with the backing intact. I did this to add some more stickiness to my mat to give the charm extra hold. You want to keep the backing so you can see where the charm area would be placed when cut.

Cut out your charm (for my contact paper, I used blade 3, speed 4 and thickness 5) using the ratchet blade. Since my charm was irregularly shaped, I first scanned it full-size and then traced it on Adobe Illustrator before transferring it to the Silhouette Program. Remove the backing and then attach your charm to the sticky contact paper. 

Type out your word onto the program and fill. I cheated and used embossing fill for the insides of my words since I wasn't very familiar with the sketch fills yet. I set the embossing fill to 0.04. Set the charm outline to no cut! Use the etching tool and send it to the machine to etch. 

Once I was confident with the settings, I cut multiples of them. If you are nervous, you can use tape to provide additional hold onto the edges of the charm. Add your hardware and you are done!

In my case, I'll be sending these to my friend to finish since she has the matching chain and jump rings. I love the phrase that she thought of - and I'm pretty sure her friends will adore them too! You can make a set for your friends for Valentines or for any occasion, really. I am thinking of making some from my friends from college, too!

Do you like etched jewelry? Hope you enjoyed this short tutorial! Happy crafting, friends!

"

DIY: Ornate Faux Leather Earrings using the Silhouette Curio

This post is sponsored by Silhouette America - I have been sent the Silhouette Deep Cut Blade to try out, but all opinions and ideas on this post are my own. 

I've been waiting so long to try out the new Deep Cut Blade from Silhouette. I love cutting leather on my Silhouette Portrait but unfortunately, some just don't cut all the way through even with triple or quadruple passes. With the Silhouette Deep Cut Blade, some of my materials cut nicely - it just takes a bit of practice to get the right settings! Read on to see how I made the leather earrings, download the template and for some tips I have discovered when cutting faux leather and leather pieces on the Silhouette Curio. 

Supplies:

• Silhouette Deep Cut Blade
• Silhouette Curio
• Silhouette Curio Base + Cutting Mat
• Leather or Faux Leather
• Painter's Tape
• Scissors
• Earring hooks
• Jump rings
• Jewelry pliers
• Template (download at the end of the post)

Cut a piece of your leather or faux leather material. For this project, I tried cutting the earring out using real leather and some faux leather with a mesh backing. Back your leather piece with painter's tape - this is to pevent hairs from dirtying your mat really fast and acts as a stabilizer for your piece. It also helps your leather to stick better to the mat. Tape the sides as well to prevent further movement of the piece on the mat.

Just need to poke out those details - but they're all fully cut in ONE PASS.

If you want additional adhesion, spray the painter's tape backing with repositionable adhesive - you don't want to spray this directly on to the leather as it would just absorb it. 

With a regular ratchet blade, the Silhouette doesn't cut all the way through on faux leather (I had to peel off the mesh backing) - but with the new blade, the Silhouette cuts it like butter - you just have to play with the settings! Don't be afraid to test cut on a scrap piece of material first. Experiment on the material thickness - you don't want the material to be dragged by the blade, resulting in uneven cuts. For the faux backed leather, I tested thickness settings 15, 18 and 20 with 18 having the most optimal result  (minimal dragging, cut is truer to real shape). The same speed and blade depth and mat height was maintained (speed 2, blade 20, mat total stack 5). Thickness setting 33 just dragged my material on the cutting mat. 

I also tested cutting real leather - for the piece I used, I used blade 12 and thickness 30 double cut twice, but it doesn't really work for intricate designs. I have cut the same material with a somewhat intricate detail on my Silhouette Portrait with okay results, so I'm pretty sure I just need to play with the settings more.  

Once you have discovered the optimal settings for your piece, cut the template. Attach the earring pieces onto some hooks using jump rings, and you are done! 

I am sure I'm going to use the deep cut blade a lot, since I loved the results. I haven't tried it on other materials yet, but I'm sure I will now that I have broken it out of its packaging and played with it for the first time. What would you like to cut with the deep-cut blade?

DOWNLOAD HERE

Ornate Earrings Cut File (.studio)

"