Silhouette CAMEO vinyl cutter

to one lucky reader!

It’s my favorite crafting tool!

(This is the CAMEO, the big one, not the smaller Portrait.)

What could you make with a Silhouette CAMEO?

Silhouette has plenty of answers — and you can also find a lot here at TTAJ! (like this and this!)

In fact, I used my Silhouette Cameo to make my

Pottery Barn-Inspired Christmas Mirror!

I love to make holiday projects (and projects year-round) with my Silhouette CAMEO!

I’ll show you a few — and show you how you can enter to win!

I used my Silhouette CAMEO for this Ballard Designs-Inspired Holiday Sign:

 And I used my Silhouette to cut the vinyl labels for the custom box on these Instagram Coasters – a great gift idea!

I even used my silhouette for a Christmas Subway Art Pillow:

And a few more Silhouette holiday projects:

1. Christmas Advent Ladder 2. Christmas Stenciled Sign 3. Valentine Jumbo Subway Art (yeah, I sneaked a Valentine project in)

My Silhouette CAMEO is the one Creative tool that I use all the time. I love it!

And now on to the giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!

xoxo

PS: Rumor has it there will be some spectacular Silhouette deals next week … stay tuned!

This post sponsored by Silhouette; see my disclosures.

The post Giveaway: Silhouette CAMEO Vinyl Cutter ($299 value)!! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

how COOL is that???

I had such a fun time experimenting with the new Silhouette Stamping Kit. The possibilities are endless. Just think of the projects YOU can create!!! You can make stamps out of ANY graphic or text you dream up!!

Stamping is a fun way to add your own style to your projects. With a Silhouette electronic cutting tool and stamping supplies, you can make your own stamps to use on scrapbook pages, cards, or anything else that could use a punch of creative character.

This is amazing!! 

Enter code “TATER” at checkout to get these awesome deals!

These are great deals … if you’re thinking about a Silhouette in time for the holidays, check these out:

• A Silhouette Portrait kit

— plus the Silhouette Stamping Starter Kit — only $129.99 (a $200 value!)

WHAT’S INCLUDED

A Silhouette Cameo kit — plus the Silhouette Stamping Starter Kit — only $269.99 (a $329 value!)

WHAT’S INCLUDED

• And 20% off the Stamping Starter Kit — just $23.99!

To get your discount, remember to enter code “TATER” at checkout!

These deals are only good September 4-13, so exciting!

I will be sharing a post on how to create custom stamps in 8 easy steps soon!! These stamps are SO easy to create and so FUN!!! 

And here’s how you can enter to win your very own Silhouette Portrait!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 Good luck!

xoxo

The post Make Your Own Custom Stamps and Win A Silhouette Portrait! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

This week’s giveaway is from Silhouette!

This week I’m giving away a Silhouette Portrait to one fabulous reader!

You all know by now – this is one of my all-time favorite crafting tools and I LOVE to share it with my friends!

Link up your projects and enter to win after the break:

Check out my post from yesterday to see all kinds of different projects I’ve made with my Silhouette, like:

Here’s how to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 Don’t forget to use code TATER at checkout for the special prices!

* * * * *

  I’ve got two Great Ideas posts coming this weekend featuring your projects!!  

<a href="https://tatertotsandjello.com/" target="_blank">
<img src="https://tatertotsandjello.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/978446890_7b2ZN-O2.png" alt="" />

Please visit and comment on TWO linkups above you and TWO linkups below you — in addition to any others that you want to visit. 
{We all love comments!}

Have fun!!!
I can’t wait to see YOUR ideas and feature YOU!!
xoxo

The post Weekend Wrap-Up Party — and Silhouette Portrait Giveaway!! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

It’s so bright and cheerful-looking.

I made a Navy and Yellow Wreath.

A Nautical Fourth of July Mantel.

And recreated a dark basement bedroom into a Bright Nautical Teen Bedroom.

I thought it would be fun to make some decorative buoys – which seem SO nautical. 

It also turns out – the buoys are easier to make than you’d think!

Here’s what I did:

• Run to the hardware store and pick up a length of 4×4 pine. DON’T get the pressure-treated stuff. You don’t need it and it’s kind of nasty unless you really need it — hard to cut and full of chemicals. 
• I picked out an 8-foot length — look for straight boards with few splits. They should be about 10 dollars.
• I then had the helpful guy in the lumber department use his big table saw to cut me 4 one-foot pieces from the eight-foot length, leaving four feet for another project. Why four pieces? Well, that way I could have safely messed up and still had spares.
• (Remember that a 4×4 is actually closer to about 3 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches square. It’s a hardware thing. Weird.)

Once you get the one-foot lengths home, you’ll want to follow these directions to shape the rectangular pieces into a buoy shape.

• Isn’t that a helpful diagram? We used our big sliding chop saw (compound miter saw) to cut these. The blade and saw were just barely big enough to cut the board. You could use a table saw as well.
• What we found worked best is in the diagram above. Mark and cut only the right side of the board. Then flip the board 180 degrees so you can mark and cut the side directly opposite.
• You’ll then have a buoy that tapers in only 2 of the 4 sides. Rotate the board 90 degrees and mark again, cutting the right side — then 180 degrees again. Mark and cut and you’re done.

Now to finish the boards we just needed to drill holes for the ropes. My father-in-law drilled the holes with his handy-dandy drill press. You could use a power drill as well; it will just take more effort. We drilled the main hole at 3/8 inch to accommodate a 1/4 inch rope. We also chamfered, which means tapered, the holes on each side with a slightly larger hole to add some authenticity. (On a real buoy the chamfering would keep the rope from chafing and wearing along the edge of the hole.)

I used my Silhouette to cut out vinyl to use as a stencil for the numbers and stars. It was so easy. And I used painter’s taope to tape off the areas to paint. After painting the areas, I sanded them down, added some dye to make them look old and threw them around a little to give them character.

The last thing I did was added some rope from Home Depot and strung it through the holes of each buoy and tied the ends in a big knot. I added a few colorful ribbons too because I love color!!

There are so many color possibilities — here’s a picture of some real buoys from FishTownCottage:

And Open Travel:

Have YOU gotten the Spring Decorating BUG? 

Share YOUR projects in the comments! 

xoxo

The post DIY Address and Patriotic Buoys! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

Good morning Tatertots & Jello readers! Today I’m going to share a little project I put together for our front porch.

Now that the sun is shining and the weather is warming up the neighborhood kids are coming out to play! I love that even though my daughter is only 4, that the kids want to play with her. However I don’t love that they come knocking at all times of the day, and usually multiple times a day. I feel bad having to open the door and say, “we are working on homework”, “we are getting ready to go to ballet”, etc. If you have kids, you know what I mean. I decided it would be easier for me to make a sign that would let them know if my daughter was available to play, that way they would know as soon as they rode their bikes up to the door, whether or not they should knock.

To make the sign I gathered a few items I had around the house and printed the words “Let’s play!” and “Let’s play later” with my Silhouette.

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own:

* Small piece of wood, mine is 5″x5″
* Paint
* 2 Paint brushes
* Vinyl cut outs or stickers
* Mod Podge
* Twine
* Glue gun
* Staple gun

First I painted both sides of my wood square. You can paint them the same color if you’d like but I have lots of left over paint so I thought it would be fun to use 2 different colors.

After the paint dried I transferred my vinyl cutouts onto the wood.

Since the sign will be outside I wanted to give it a little extra protection so I painted a layer of Mod Podge on both sides.

After the Mod Podge had dried I used my glue gun to wrap all the edges of the sign in twine. I was going to use ribbon but since it’s going to be outside I though using twine would give it a more “outside” look. You can use whatever you prefer though.

I love the way it looked after adding the twine!

Once all the edges were wrapped I cut off a small piece of twine (about 6 inches) and stapled it to the top, using a staple gun. Then I took my sign out front and hung it on my chalkboard.

I think it’s a cute addition to the front porch and I love that now I won’t have to answer the door for the neighborhood kids as much!

What a great idea, Anna. 

I love it!!

Here are a few other awesome ideas from Ask Anna: 

Spring Cleaning Printable and Ideas

How to Organize Kids Crafts

Dairy-Free Marshmallow Pops

You will love following Ask Anna for all kinds of fabulous cleaning and organizing ideas! 

Have a Fabulous Day!! 

xoxo

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Good morning Tatertots & Jello readers! I’m Anna, and I’m happy to be back here, on this beautiful March morning, sharing a tutorial with you of something I recently learned how to do.

I absolutely love my Silhouette Cameo but a few months ago I was wanting to cut a custom piece, that was larger than the standard 12×12 square cut mat. Have you ever wondered how to do that? I’ve seen tons of extra large vinyl cutouts, floating around on Pinterest, and I’ve always thought, “gee, I bet I could do that with my Cameo…” And sure enough, it’s possible, and it’s even easier than I thought it would be!!

Step 1: Pull up the Silhouette program.

When you open the program this is what your screen will look like. Keep it on this page and we’re going to make a couple little tweaks to a couple of the settings.

Step 2: Adjust the Width and Height

You can adjust the width and height to however large you need it to be, as long as one of them is set not wider than 12″. For this project I set it to cut a 24″ x 10″ piece. I made one a few months ago that was 48″ x 12″ and it was awesome!

Step 3: Adjust the cutting surface

You want to make sure and tell the Silhouette machine that you will not be using a cut mat, so change this setting to “None”.

Step 4: Adjust the rollers

Since you will not be using your cut mat to cut the vinyl, you need to move the right roller over. Once you move the roller over it will be narrow enough to grab the paper. This is what it will look like once the paper is loaded.

Step 5: Create your design

Create your extra large design and then select “Send to Silhouette”. Once you’re there make sure all of the settings are correct and that it shows your design printing the right direction.

Step 6: Cut the vinyl

You don’t have to cut the vinyl, you can load the vinyl, still on the roll, right into the machine, however I like to cut it down to size. Once you’ve cut the vinyl to the correct size, load it into the Silhouette, and press the “Cut Page” button on the computer. Then watch it to its magic!

When the Silhouette has finished cutting your page unload the paper and peel off the unneeded vinyl. Here’s another trick for you… my favorite tool for getting off the tiny pieces of vinyl, is my seam ripper.

Yep! With it’s pointy edge it does a fantastic job at getting up all the tiny pieces of vinyl, that are normally hard to pull up.

Once you’re done pulling off all the extra vinyl you can admire your extra large work of art!

Here’s the other extra large project I created back at Thanksgiving, it was 48″ tall and I had to cut it in 3 pieces because the finished tree was over 12″ wide.

Now that you know how to cut an extra large vinyl project, what will you create? I can’t wait to see it!

Thanks Anna!! 

What a great tutorial.

It’s amazing all of the things you can create with your Silhouette.

And I also love that you can reverse out your vinyl and use it as a stencil if you don’t like the look of vinyl, but still want to print out an extra large vinyl stencil. Awesome!

Here are some other ideas that I love at Ask Anna: 

How to Clean Out Your Closet and Get Free Clothes

How to Make DIY Chalkboard Labels

How to Wash Windows and Mirrors

Vacuuming – How to Clean Rugs and Floors

If you want to keep your home better organized and clean – be sure to head over to Ask Anna for all kinds of tips and ideas!! 

Have a Beautiful Day! 

xoxo

The post How to Cut an Extra Large Vinyl Design with Your Silhouette Machine! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

Hi, TT&J friends! It’s Amy again from Positively Splendid, and I am thrilled to be here today to share a new spring project!

Being a southern girl, there are few things I love more than to punch up an outfit with a feminine, flirty accessory. This lace-embellished tote features delicate lace and a bold monogram: the perfect combination of sweetness and sass! By using a pre-made tote bag, this is a fun DIY accessory project that you can easily make in an hour or less. These bags would make terrific gifts, too!

For this project, you will need…

• Plain tote bag (I purchased mine in a pack of 3 at Jo-Ann)
• Lace trim (yardage needed will vary depending upon the size of the tote used)
• Coordinating thread
• Embroidery needle
• Brooch or pendant
• Monogram embellishment
• Basic sewing supplies: machine, shears, pins, etc.

To begin, pin the lace trim along the top edge of the tote, as shown.

Overlap the ends of the trim on the back side of the tote at the center.

To make the trim look nice and polished, fold the end of the overlapping piece by about 1/2″ to conceal the raw edge.

Use a wide zig-zag stitch to affix the trim to the tote.

The lace trim looks very pretty all on its own, but I decided to add even more pizzazz to my bag by creating a lace flower accessory to pin to the front, as well. (I’ve linked to the tutorial for my Vintage Lace Brooches below.) A pretty brooch center really makes this embellishment pop!

For the monogram on my bag, I used my CAMEO to cut the lettering from vinyl using the Script Monogram designs from the Silhouette Online Store. No die cutter at your disposal? Don’t worry! You can also create a monogram with stencils and fabric paint, or for an embroidered look, use iron-on embroidered decals like the ones I used in my office chair slipcover.

Once your monogram lettering is applied to your tote, you are all finished! Wasn’t that easy?

In no time at all, you have a pretty tote to carry all spring long!

The lace is so delicate and pretty…

…and the brooch embellishment really makes this bag shine!

For the full details for how to create a lace flower embellishment like the one on my tote, be sure to check out my Vintage Lace Brooch tutorial.

And for even more fun spring inspiration, be sure to venture over to my Spring Project Gallery!

Thanks so much to Jen for having me over again today! I’ll be back next month with another fun tutorial, but in the meantime, I’d love for you stop by Positively Splendid to say hello!

Thanks Amy!!

What a fabulous Spring Project!!

Here are a few more amazing projects from Positively Splendid:

Easter Egg Wreath

Felt Carrot Garland

Baked Chocolate Cake Donuts

Positively Splendid is an amazing site and you will LOVE Amy’s ideas!!

Have a Beautiful Day!! 

xoxo

The post Make a DIY Monogrammed Lacy Spring Tote! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

Thanks girls!!

You are SO amazing!!

I am SO excited about Creating With The Stars. 

Also – check out these other great ideas:

How to Make a Wood Framed Mirror

Outdoor Furniture Upcycle

And I can’t wait to see more projects from East Coast Creative – they are fabulous!! 

Have a Creative Day!! 

xoxo

 

The post How to Upcycle an Old Piece of Art Into Something Fabulous (Stenciled Typography Tutorial) appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

CHA

(Craft and Hobby Association) Convention.

I wanted to share a FABULOUS discount that Silhouette is running while they are here at the show!

If you have a Silhouette or a Portrait,

now’s your time to stock up on supplies!

Silhouette is running their BEST deal of the year right now — 40% off ALL supplies. 

This is a great time to stock up on supplies for 2013. 

Just click on the Silhouette link, 

And then type in TATER in the box that says “APPLY CODE”

(like this:)

Have a Wonderful Day! 

xoxo

The post Special CHA Discount — 40% off ALL Silhouette Supplies!! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

Now’s your chance to get yours!

There’s a special bundle available for tatertotsandjello.com readers — but only until January 2!

You can get $20 off a new, limited-edition Silhouette Portrait tote bag and a Silhouette Portrait

… only $219.99 (MSRP $239.98)!

(This tote bag is brand new, and it’s the first chance anyone has had to get them!)

It’s the perfect way to carry the Portrait and supplies to craft nights!

Plus,

You can get  the limited edition advent calendar kit for 40 percent off!

Here’s the calendar I made:

(The kit includes a 20-shape download card,  a solid wood frame painted white, and 35 hanging clips)

And after the holidays, I am going to take the fabric backing off and use it to display Instagram pictures all year round. The clips are perfect for displaying square Instagram pictures.  There are a few companies like Printsagram that will print off your Instagram pictures in a small 2.5 x 2.5 size that would be perfect to display in this frame. Yay!

(here’s an example from the Silhouette Blog)

I can’t wait to get my pictures and get started! I’ll show you how it looks soon

* * * * *

I told you about the Silhouette Portrait, the Sihouette Cameo’s little sister

earlier this month.

(check out this project I made (you could use the idea for other holidays too) with the Silhouette Portrait!)

The Silhouette Portrait is only three and a half pounds — and easy for taking around on the go!

 * * * * *

 Here’s how to get these special prices:

Visit the special Silhouette Sale page, and

use the code TATER

I hope you are having a HAPPY day! 

xoxo

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