itsratherpretty.blogspot.com

Visit my new beauty blog at itsratherpretty.blogspot.com! Happy Announcement: I have finally figured out how to use my camera and to upload my photos onto my blogs. Now, the photo quality will greatly improve! Bye!

Silhouette Tip

As we all probably know, SVG files cannot be imported into the basic Silhouette Software. However, you can cut it out! Here's how:

1. Open up all of the SVG files in your shape. 
2. Copy each into a Paint file separately. Save each file separately.
3. Open them up in the Silhouette Software.
4. Trace (outline only) them. You can trace the entire shape if you want, but in my experience, there were always missing lines/extra lines. Stick to the basic shape outline.
5. Put all of your traces into one file for easy reference.

There you go!

 Read more for a secret giveaway!

Links: www.misskatecuttables.com

SVG Cuts

I recently visited the SVG website, and found a ton of intricate, multi-layered cuts for free! Whew- just finished downloading them all, and categorizing them into organized folders on my desktop. There were some pretty great finds there, so I suggest you take an hour or two to download all of their goodies! Plus, Silhouette America's about to release their Shape of the Week tomorrow, so remember to check that out! I know I haven't been posting anything in a long time- no paper craft posts yet this year- because, I've been working on this huge 40- page scrapbook! When I'm finished, I will post each page, with highlights on the new techniques I learned while making that page. Plus, there will be lots of scrapbook "LOL"s (if you don't know what they are, Learning Our Lessons)! Lots of exciting things coming ahead for the spring and summer- including some fun tags and journaling tips. Can't wait for the summer, when the work load relaxes, so I can do more crafting! Don't you guys?

Silhouette Blade

Just a few days before Easter, everyone. Just thought I'd release some Silhouette tips in case you haven't started on your Easter projects yet. O.K., so there's this thing on that's seriously seems unnecessary until you  need it on the Silhouette software. It's called thickness- you can find this when you click the "Send to Silhouette" button. It's on a scale of 1 to 30, with 30 being the default. Recently, I was doing some heavy-duty blade experiments and set my blade to 10. After I did this, I had some other regular projects to do, and need my blade set at 3. Unfortunately, the blade was stuck. I tried countless fruitless attempts to turn the dial back to 3- heating, oil, water, rubber bands...none of them worked. Finally, I broke down and contacted Customer Service. I never expected them to return my email- much less return it within 2 days! I explained to them my situation, and they asked me for my mailing address to replace my faulty blade. Man, I was thrilled!

An hour after my celebration, I realized how long it was probably going to take the blade to arrive. So, I did some more blade experiments. The Silhouette team suggests that you set your blade at its minimum blade exposure to prevent blade chipping. I found that even at a blade setting of 10, I was still able to cut regular patterned paper without damaging the mat! For pattern paper, set your thickness at 3. For regular copy paper, set your thickness at 1. The thickness controls how hard the blade is pushed down into the paper.
P.S. I found that the setting of 10 with a thickness of 3 on a speed of 1, cutting Colorbok's patterned paper so far yielded the best results for cutting font. I was able to smoothly cut Lucida Handwriting- font at a 14 fnt size! Wowzers.

My blade just arrived an hour ago- it came within a week. Super happy to have my new blade- which spins in its dial perfectly! However, I'm even more glad that I now am armed with the knowledge of maximum usage of faulty blades!(;

Note****Silhouette Customer Service rocks! It replaced my blade, no questions asked and no blade inspection required! However, I think you have to request your replacement during your machine's waranty- they ask for your machine's serial number.

Happy Easter- or Happy Sunday to those of you who don't celebrate Easter.

Chocolate and Strawberry Cupcake With Sprinkles

Hi everyone. As I promised, I improved my cupcake charm from the previous cupcake charm post. I am really proud of this charm, and am thrilled to be able to share it with you guys. If  you've been following my Spring Break Dessert Charm Spree week, then you've seen all of my different techniques and step by step tutorials on how to make different charms. By now, you must know enough about charm making for me to skip the tutorials. I'll just give quick step throughs. If you have a particular question on any of the steps, please leave a comment or go look at the other dessert charm/dessert charms posts. I would also like to thank Fairytailslilangel for providing extremely helpful videos on how to make cupcakes! Following her video,  made the cupcake liner (that's what it's called!) out of clay, a blade, and tweezers to magnify the creases in the liner. In her video, she tells you to have the liner and the cake itself start out as the same piece of clay that will later be separated. However, I find that making the liner, then adding a pressed circle on top for the cake  to be more fun. I then got twirled four strands of icing and attached  vanilla and chocolate sprinkles. Oh- don't forget the white dots on the liner or the charm pin either! Have a terrific day, and see everyone next post!

Green Cupcake with Vanilla Sprinkles

      Here's anther pretty cool cupcake charm that I made. Hope you've enjoyed all of my charm posts.

Mint Oreo With Toffee Ice Cream

                                    Here's a double dose of daily sweetness- cookie and ice cream!