Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

If you follow the blog, you know I've been on a sign kick, but I really wanted to get some Alcohol Inking in. Truth be told, the first time I saw these metal sign blanks at Dollar Tree, I thought about inking them. I've made a bunch of signs out of these metal sign blanks , but this is the first time I followed my initial instinct and inked one of them. Over the last two weeks, I've been making signs out of a sheet of white vinyl I cut with several designs. This week's design was from my library of freebie designs. I used the standard settings for vinyl on my old Silhouette Cameo , but I upped the force to 11 because the Silhouette-branded vinyl is quite thick. After the designs were cut, I separated each design with scissors. When I was ready to work on this project, I got out my weeding tool and removed the excess vinyl. The tiny letters at the top were a bit of a pain when I was pulling off the exterior vinyl, but the rest of the design weeded easily. So now it...

I found another metal sign blank in my craft stash, so clearly, I had to make another sign .  I located a couple of patriotic designs in my library of freebies from the Design Store. I found a couple and loaded some dark blue permanent vinyl into my old Silhouette Cameo . After the design was cut, I sliced apart the two designs with scissors, and I started weeding out the one I chose for this sign. I saved some of the stars as I was weeding and placed them around the design. This design had tiny slivers in the As that were a real pain to get into place, but in the end, I was successful! Then I applied transfer tape over the design and rubbed it down with the handle of my  weeding tool . Then I peeled the paper backing off of the design. Then I applied the transfer tape and the decal onto the sign and rubbed the vinyl down with the weeding tool's handle again. Then comes my favorite part. I peeled the transfer tape off to reveal the design. I held my breath as I peeled the tap...

Last week , I cut some vinyl out to make a sign. Since I was cutting with white vinyl. Since I needed to fill up my craft mat (to avoid oddly shaped scraps of vinyl), I cut out a few other designs. This design ("Hand Made with Love"), I picked out for this Mason Jar shaped sign blank from Dollar Tree. I was able to get both designs and some spare dog paws cut out of this sheet of white permanent vinyl on my old Silhouette Cameo . I cut the "Hand Made with Love" design out of the sheet of vinyl and used a  weeding tool to remove the excess vinyl. After the design had been weeded, I cut a piece of transfer tape to size. Since the design wasn't a solid square inch size, I folded the sheet of transfer tape and the design to help me find the middle and keep things straight. I applied the transfer tape and rubbed the letters to make sure they were stuck well to the tape, then I peeled off the paper backing and applied the tape and vinyl to the sign. I rubbed down th...

  It's been busy here, so all I had time for was a quick project this week. When I came across this design in the pick-a-design section of the Silhouette Store, it spoke to me on several levels. It also looked like a really nice simple design that would be easy to cut. It was. This is a great beginner-friendly project. I put the design into the Silhouette Studio and sized it so that it would fit on the metal sign that I had from Dollar Tree. Then I cut it using the default glossy vinyl settings. Since I was only cutting one design, I cut a piece of black permanent vinyl a bit bigger than my design and placed it in the same corner of my mat as it was in Silhouette Studio. It cut quickly and cleanly on my Silhouette Cameo with no issues. I got out my vinyl weeding tool and peeled off the main piece of vinyl. I used the vinyl weeding tool to pick out the vinyl that was in between the letters. This one was a quick and easy weed. The letters were thick enough that they cut well and d...

I've been enjoying making signs using these metal blanks from Dollar Tree by adding vinyl cut on my Silhouette Cameo . They're usually pretty easy (as long as the weeding goes ok) and turn out cute. So with the upcoming Easter holiday, I was putting up a few decorations and realized I didn't have any signs. Well, that cannot stand--it was now a moral imperative that I made a couple of Easter signs. I perused the freebies in my Silhouette library from over the years and found a couple that I could use. Since I had an idea that was definitely an experiment in mind, I measured my signs and arranged duplicate versions and backup designs and some extra eggs to fill the 12 x 12 grid. After I cut the vinyl , I started weeding the "backup" design. After the nerve-wracking bit of pulling off the exterior vinyl, I thought I was home free--but it turns out I missed a section of the second "E" and it got stuck to the exterior vinyl and thrown out in the trash. This...