Valentine Project - Print & Cut Iron-on

I tried using the Square 1 printable iron-on fabric for the first time a few days ago.  It was very easy to work with and there are all sorts of ways you could use this product for practical and decorative purposes.  Above you can see some of the images that I cut out with my Silhouette Cameo after printing the page in my regular inkjet printer.

I'll post the finished project tomorrow, but I wanted to show you how easy it is to bring any graphic that you own (I have hundreds of digital scrap kits!) into the Silhouette software and make a cutting file for it.

If you are bringing an image in from the Creative Memories StoryBook program (no longer available to purchase but if you own it you can still use it) or the Panstoria Artisan program (this is the program I now use), you will need to export the image into a file on your computer that you can access easily.  Right click and choose "Save selection" - "Export to image file" from the drop down menu.

There is an additional screen where you acknowledge the copyright and agree not to violate it.

If you already have some digital scrap supplies in a file you can just drag them in to the Silhouette Studio from an open folder or choose "open" from the file menu and browse to the image.  Be sure to change the drop down menu to "all files"

The images tend to come in at very large sizes but you can quickly adjust them to a better size using the scale tools.  Once you have added the image to the mat, you need to trace it to add cut lines.

Choose "Select Trace Area" from the top of  the trace menu and draw a blue box around the shape.  Then uncheck the "High Pass Filter" box and adjust the Threshold until there is a solid yellow line around the edges of the image.  Since you are going to do a print and cut, the interior details do not matter.

Just choose "Trace Outer Edge" and a cut line in the shape of the image will be created.  I have separated the shape and the cut line for this screen shot.  You will want to "group" them so the cut lines stay with the image as you set up the mat for cutting.

I repeated this process for each image I brought in to the program and filled the mat as neatly and as fully as I could (I didn't want to waste any of the material).

Use the "Cut Style" menu to set the file to cut on the edges of the printed images.  When you choose the cut setting, the screen will gray and the bold red lines will show exactly where the cuts will be made.  Sometimes I do an interior offset of the shape to create a slightly smaller proportioned cut shape.

Here is the fabric with the images and registration marks after I printed the file on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of the Iron-on Printable Fabric.

Here you can see all of the cut shapes on the mat after I cut the file with the Cameo.  I removed the excess material, but I have a tip for using the leftovers - stop by tomorrow to see.

The cut shapes were nearly perfectly aligned with the printed images.  Once these are ironed on to fabric any slight variation in the cutting line is not noticeable.

Are you wondering what I made with all of these?  Tomorrow I'll show you part two!

There have been several requests for more photos of our new cat so I have a few to share...

She likes the heated floor and the rug in our sunroom - especially in this cold weather...

Such a pretty little face...

She can be a bit grumpy if you try to get her to leave her special spot.

Look at this great new feeding dish we found for her at Tuesday Morning for only $5!

Thank you for all of the kind comments about my Dad yesterday.  He was a very special man.

Quite a few people have asked if I sell my files.  I was planning to set up a store just about the time Dad's health deteriorated and those plans were put aside with our crazy year.  I hope to have the store ready sometime in the next few weeks.  Thanks also for the lovely compliments on the Valentine card and the encouragement to move forward with these plans. I have something special planned for next month - if you have been reading my blog for a long time you might have an idea about what will be happening...

One final note - Happy Birthday Kelly!!!

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