Today I had the pretty pleasure of putting together this invitation set for a friend of mine whose pretty little girl will be turning one at the end of this month. She’s a cutie for sure and a busy little bee! She’s been walking for almost the past three months. We think she’s going to start driving soon.
To put this together, I created a template for the invitation in Photoshop Elements, filled it with pretty digital elements and papers from Crate Paper’s Pretty Party Collection (available at acdigitals.com) and added this pretty photo of Jordyn taken by her mom, Jina. The template was sized to fit as a standard-sized card. Four templates fit on one 8-1/2-x-11-inch piece of HP Premium Photo Paper (Soft Gloss). I printed one dozen for family and friends and placed the invitations in a pretty folder I printed and cut with my Silhouette Portrait. To prevent the invitations from getting bent in the mail, I placed pieces of chipboard in each envelope.
Packaging these cute little invitations, folder, and envelopes perplexed me. I remembered a box from CTMH’s Artiste Cricut Cartridge. It looks like a mini magazine holder and is the perfect box to hold an invitation collection. It was one of the reasons I purchased the cartridge. As you may know, I recently became the proud owner of a Silhouette Portrait machine—it’s been getting a good using, too. Oh! How I wish I could make this box a print-and-cut for my Silhouette. Well, I did!
How to Cut/Print-and-Cut Cricut Images
with your Silhouette Machine
I sized the Cricut cut I wanted as a Silhouette cut file to fit on an 8-1/2-x-11-inch piece of paper. I replaced the blade in my Cricut with a black pen and drew the shapes on white cardstock. Then I scanned these drawn images into my computer. I cleaned them up in Photoshop and saved them as png images. Once in my Silhouette software, I used the tracing tool to process the image as a cut. Then I was able to fill it with the exact patterned paper I wanted. This really made me happy and was easier than I thought it would be. I was even able to remove the little cuts Cricut images have as score lines and replaced them with score lines that I like better. Now I’m sure I’m not going to want to do this with ALL of the Cricut images I own, just for ones that are special to me or that I can’t find easily as a free svg file. Besides, why buy when I already have, KWIM? It really bridges that gap doesn’t it? Don’t get rid of your Cricut stuff just yet . . .
I absolutely LOVE this box. Wish I had one like it. And not to worry, you cannot get in trouble converting what you already own and using it for your own purpose. Some people are just too happy to try to tell you otherwise. Thanks for sharing and have a great day.(I don't own a Cricut btw and never have :) but LOVE my Cameo.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Karel! I love my new machine, too. It works like a dream. The only regret is that I waited so long to get it. Happy crafting!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this tip. I have bookmarked it. My new toy is a Cameo and I have many (80) cricut cartridges. Now I can try taking my very favorite cricut designs and convert to Silhouette.
ReplyDeleteYou are sooo creative.
Thanks, Tammy! I'm glad we can put our favorite Cricut cuts to get use again and they won't be left behind. Something I didn't post and probably will: When you're drawing cuts that coordinate together, like the box I cut above had two pieces, you want to make sure you are using relative sizing, so the two pieces fit together. Once you retrieve them in Silhouette software, be sure they're both selected when you resize them. I hope I'm making sense. This is probably one of those things I don't have to explain but I'd like it to be successful for everyone.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea! I have Cricut carts that I'd love to be able to use with my Silhouette! I'll be looking through them this weekend. Thanks for the tip!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea! Thanks for the info!
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