My First Silhouette Cameo Project

 

January always seems like a long month for me, short days, gray weather, the rush of the holidays are over. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, it just seems to last longer than the average month.

Today as I type this, I am sitting inside the window with a ray of glorious sunshine warming me, so today we are blessed with bright sunshine. (though we had a frigid 1 degree this morning:( )

We also had an inch or so of light, fluffy snow yesterday afternoon and last night. I am thankful for our picture windows to admire the beauty outside while being cooped indoors.

The birds (and squirrels :/) are an entertainment on days like this..

Of course, Pebbles watches them for a different reason than what I do..:(

Getting to the point of this post here.. I saved up some money from Birthday and Christmas gifts to buy a new toy for myself..  a Silhouette Cameo! (drum roll) I admit to feeling like a child on Christmas morning when I took it out of the box. Folks, this is a crafters dream!

I won’t keep on fussing too much here, but to put it in one sentence: After years of carbon paper, scissors, hours of cutting out stencils, aching arms from holding stuff in place, and the list goes on, this machine does all that and more!

Now, I admit to felling a bit intimidated while setting it up and yes, I’ve had frustrations already, BUT I can see where it’s a learning process and the more I familiarize myself with it, the better it will go. Also, there are tons of great videos out there to help along.

 

I’ve never owned a Cricut, but I’m hearing on videos and from other people that the Cameo is similar to the Cricut, maybe a little more advanced.

I will have a more detailed post in the future, once I know my Cameo ( I like that, “my Cameo,” almost like a child ) better. So far, I’ve only used vinyl for my project and typical of me, I ended up trying one of the more difficult things with it first, instead of easing into it, so I did have a little stress, but it ended up turning out okay, for a first project.

I love designing wall scrolls, so I decided to make one out of brown craft paper for our living room wall.

Up close..

The letters are black vinyl letters, which the Cameo cut out, after I programmed it to do so. I peeled the words off the adhesive vinyl backing and placed them onto the craft paper. Usually there is a technique where you use clear transfer paper to take the letters off, but for me (or maybe the brand of transfer paper I had) it didn’t work very well and I ended up wasting precious vinyl. I want to try some other methods on the next project.

I used an empty cardboard tube to wrap the craft paper around a few times on the top and for the bottom, I just rolled it up and glued it to make it look like a scroll.

It’s not perfect but it’s just the look I wanted for that wall in the living room!

I can’t wait to try another project with this amazing machine! The possibilities are endless!

Happy Friday, everyone!

-Mary