Zebra Wall Art

During my excursion to Hobby Lobby to pick up the ornaments... I happened upon a few "artist boards".  These beauties were on clearance for less than $4!  My creative mind was brainstorming away just "knowing" these would be necessary in a future project.  I could only imagine what my Cameo could do with something like this.   

Well, it didn't take long.  After making a sign for my daughters door with her new Zebra craze she is going through, I couldn't help but wonder how hard it would be to make some wall art for her room.  So looking for pictures we could convert to vinyl art we went.  One of the pictures she picked out was this one.

  Pretty simple, black and white with clean lines.  I didn't think it would be too hard to trace - WRONG... Especially when you haven't done it before.  It was still easy, once I figured it out.

If you know me... you know I dive into everything.  Without reading directions.  I just do it.  Then, when something doesn't work right..  I pull out the owners manual!  Brahaahaa... just a little FYI for you.  Anyway, after deciding vinyl was just too precious to waste, I read up on how to trace designs in both Silhouette Studio Designer and Make a Cut.  To be honest.. there is a VERY detailed and wonderful tutorial on Youtube for Studio, but the program really lacked what I want... EASE! I honestly think I spent several hours reading and watching videos, just to find out what is what.  Make a cut is SO much easier!!  Especially, if you're like me and are only using black and white.

 

 

Once I had the design traced, I cut it out and voila!  Not hard at all.  She LOVED it!  I was pretty proud of it too. 

Personalized Ornaments

I'm still lovin' my Cameo!  I just wished I had more time to play around with it.  Since I'm home for a few weeks, I called my TRUSTY side kick over (My wonderful Mom!) and we tinkered around with making ornaments.

Super Duper Easy Peasy!  These are the easiest things to do.

We got the 2 5/8 balls and ribbon at Hobby Lobby (as always, I used my 40% coupon) and I had the vinyl that I purchased from H&H.  We started out using clear ornaments with the thoughts of putting in the metallic gift shred, but it drowned out the lettering on the ornament, so we changed our minds.

We created the design in the Silhouette Studio Designer and cut, then transferred them to the ornaments.  The biggest thing we had to be careful about was the dot on the "i" pulling up.  It would sometime catch on the Silhouette and other times it would stick when weeding.


There are several blogs and posts about using two colors and putting them on at the same time, but I was too chicken.  The vinyl ain't expensive,  but it ain't free so I opted for a chicken route! LOL!  One at a time... and it worked perfectly for us chickens.




I think they turned out wonderful! 

 



SoftOrbits Photo to Sketch Converter

This is another goodie I've ran across from Give Away of the Day.  If you want to turn your photo into a sketch, this is the best software I've ran across to do just that.   Works better than actions and filters in Photoshop too!

Here are a few pictures from their website:

Numerous presets are available to allow converting photos into pen or pencil sketches, creating color drawings or watercolor paintings in just a few moments. You can tweak each preset to create a drawing that matches your desired style just perfect.

Create Colorful Pencil Sketches in a Click of a Button

Creating a wonderful colorful sketch with accurately laid pencil strokes could not be made easier. You don’t have to be able to hold a color pencil or even own one! All you need to turn a photo into a color sketch is Sketch Drawer.

Sketch Drawer allows producing color and black-and-white sketches equally easy. Draw with colored pencils by ticking the "Color Sketch" box to convert a photo into a color sketch, or clear the box to draw with a graphite pencil. Converting images to sketches and saving them as JPEG files will only take a few clicks and tweaks. Change photos to sketches with multiple art options.

Batch Photo to Sketch Conversion

Want a number of photos converted into sketches with all the same options? Turn photos into sketches no matter how many you have! The available batch mode allows Sketch Drawer to convert pictures to sketch easily even for beginners. In batch more, Sketch Drawer can convert a single picture or process entire folders. Just make sure to adjust all the settings before you begin, and you’ll be rewarded with a bunch of perfect sketches in just minutes

The Silhouette Cameo does SO MUCH!

I got the neatest gift for Christmas!  A Silhouette Cameo.  That is the coolest thing in the world!  I have been going nuts making stuff!  My first project was to add Syd's name in vinyl to a frame with all her pre-school stuff.  She wanted it in the Taylor Swift handwriting font.  Thankfully, I found it and its called "Satisfaction".  You can find it here. 
Here is a quick pic

That was so easy that I kept playing around.  My next thought was  the Laundry Room.  For some reason, My kids NEVER could get the right clothes in the right baskets.  To be totally honest- the baskets were labeled.  I had which type should go in each one.  I had a sign about 5" high in a page protector and taped to each one.  BUT this looks so much nicer!  Sorry for the blurry pic, but you get the idea! This font is ST Honeymoon. 

















With Valentine's Day around the corner, and especially since her years of passing them out is coming to an end- I wanted to do something a little creative so...  VIOLA!

I'm pretty proud of that!  It was so easy!  The font is ST Cursive Hand and the paper is from a pack I picked up at Wal-mart called Confetti by Colorbok.  It all fit nicely into a snack sized ziplock bag.