July 26, 2015

Recent Silhouette Projects

I've been having lots of fun experimenting with my silhouette to try out some new things. 

 A few months ago I made a Backyard Rules sign.  I talked about how I am an impulse crafter--I usually decide I want to do something and I try to make it that day.  So my first Backyard Rules sign was on a backing of a frame and it didn't hold up well against the buckets of rain we go in the months after I hung it up.  In June I decided to get some actual wood and make one that was a little sturdier.


I painted the wood with a few coats of yellow paint.  Then after it was dry I laid the vinyl words on it and then painted over with the navy.  After that dried I peeled off the vinyl and it was ready to go.  I did spray it with some sealer to help it stand up against water.  Hopefully this one will last--so far so good!
I also made this sign for our backyard.  We went to a birthday party in June where they had 2 Texas signs out back one painted orange with the Texas logo and one painted Green with the Baylor logo.  David talked about it and seemed to like it, so I made this one for our back patio.  I already had the canvas for a project that hadn't worked out a few months ago and it was actually already dark green.  I used the Silhouette to cut out the shapes of the states on card stock and then painted around them on the canvas.  I also made stencils for the letters with card stock.  I finished it off with some sealer.
One of the ideas I had seen on Pinterest was a giant scrabble game for your backyard.  I had looked at different options--getting wood cut, finding blocks, etc.  But I ended up picking up a box of 100 white tiles for pretty cheap at Home Depot.  At first I tried to make stencils with the silhouette to paint the letters on, but they didn't turn out so well.  I found it was much easier to cut the letters on black vinyl and then put them on.  Then I sprayed them with a sealer...

...Halfway through my project I ran out of my spray sealer that I used, but I found this Mod Podge brand one and I love it!
Our crate of tiles is ready to go!  We don't have a giant board {yet} so it's more of backyard Bananagrams at this point!

I also decided to try out some heat transfer vinyl.  I bought a few t-shirts on sale and got some samples of the vinyl.  I had recently bought a shirt from an etsy shop and I really loved her others.  I decided to try out one that was like her Texas shirts.
My first two projects didn't turn out too well, but this one seemed to work pretty easily!  I was showing it to a friend at work and she asked me to make her one that had the shape of Texas and Home on it--I have a shirt like that from Zulily.

So I made this one last week to take to her.  I'm still figuring out how to perfect the Heat Transfer Vinyl process, but these shirts seemed to come out okay for beginning projects.

I love finding new things to do with my Silhouette Machine and trying out new crafts.


No comments: