Silhouette Cameo- How to make fabric ribbon flowers

OMG, has it really been since December since I have last updated this blog? It took me over an hour to even log in, I forgot my password! lol :) But i'm hoping to redo it with a new blog background and everything so bear with me!

Today I thought I would show you how to cut fabric on your Cameo machine and turn them into fun fabric flowers! You could put these on a headband, make them into a hair clip or embellish a card or scrapbook layout. Since you all know I have my own 'bowtique' business, consider this an inside tip ;) haha

**WARNING. This is a VERY HEAVY PIC UPLOADED blog post! I tried my best to really walk you through every step**

This is Julianne modeling the headband I made her. Adorable right?? ;)

I haven't done a tutorial in a VERY long time so bear with me as I do my best to explain and get back into it! I am going to try to include lots of pics so that you can see each step. As usual, if you have any questions or requests feel free to leave me a comment! :)

First step you wanna do is open up your Silhouette software and go to your library and search for 'Scallop circles'. If you don't already have it, you will have to download it from the store. (Atleast the file i'm using).

I am working with the 4 scallop file, but only using ONE of the patterns. I will show you how to delete the others so you are left with one scallop circle. Open up the file and you are going to LEFT click on the image and click on ungroup. This will then seperate each pattern, giving it an individual box and you are now free to delete each.

Now that you have deleted all the other images and are left with the one scallop, you are free to place it wherever you want on your mat. For a larger flower, we are going to size to 2.5x2.5 so you will need to have your scallop highlighted, open up your scale window and adjust the size. (Sorry for the placement, blogger is acting up on me!)

Once you have it sized, I usually go to the page link and change my page size to 8.5x11 because I rarely cut a 12x12 piece of cardstock. Your next step is to go to the 'Replicate box' (it looks like a butterfly) and add more scallops and place them on your mat :) I usually click on the replicate right and replicate below to fill up my mat.

This is how your mat should look. You should be able to fit 12 scallops into the page and you are more than able to leave it at that or go back to the instructions I gave you and cut some more once you are done cutting these. I will show you how to get your fabric ready to cut next :)

Ok. first off, excuse the dirty mat and messy desk. This is where I make my bows and it's seen LOTS of hot glue lol ;)

Your next step is to cut an 8.5x11 piece of fabric. You can either use the rotary cutters (if you have some) or some fabric scissors :). I realized once I was cutting the no-sew 'heat n bond' that I didn't have enough for a full sheet of fabric so i'm using what is left :) 

The Heat n Bond has TWO sides. One feels just like thin paper and the BACK side is super grainy and rough.

 You are going to want to heat this bond to the back of your fabric with the grainy side down!

After you lay your heat n bond GRAINY SIDE DOWN (touching the wrong side of the fabric) you are going to place a sheet over it and iron it on. I would say roughly 20 seconds per area is good :) This is what it will look like once you are done ironing and it's done correctly

You want to LEAVE THE BACKING ON in order to cut it through with your Silhouette (these steps in preparing the fabric will also work on your Cricut as well).

Now I have placed it onto my mat and we are ready to cut!

You will go into your 'Silhouette Cut Settings and find 'Fabric Cotton' under the options. It will automatically set the settings for you and it will tell you for your blade to be at a 3. I HIGHLY recommend the fabric blade or if not, have a seperate regular blade JUST FOR FABRIC. Making hairbows and learning how to sew, I can tell you that if you cut paper with it the fabric will dull out your blade and your paper crafting will suffer. I am using a regular blade but it is for only fabric now ;)

After you have adjusted your blade and loaded your mat, press cut!

Once you are done cutting and remove them from your mat, this is what you are left with. (Obviously you will have more since I didn't have enough backing for all of my fabric.

Now remember, you still have the backing on the back so this is where you will peel off the heat n bond paper in the back. You WILL still be stuck with the clear adhesive but once you assemble your flowers it is not noticable ;)

The next step is to fold the scallop in half.

You will then fold it in half again.

This is what it should look like. A folded up fan ;)

Now you will need your needle and thread. You will place the corner onto the needle BUT DON'T PULL IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH YET. You are going to place the flower pieces on top of each other on the needle.

You will pierce your needle through the bottom corner and stack your folded scallops.

Continue stacking until you have them all stacked on the needle ;)

Now at this point you are going to pull your needle and thread through all of them (Be careful! Because of the heat n bond, it's a little tougher but manageable).

**Sorry for the horrible pic, I was working one handed;)**

Now you will pull and tie the thread. At this point it will start to look like a flower.

Snip the remaining thread and now you are free to adjust the petals and do whatever you want with it! :)

**Obviously mine isn't full because I didn't have enough petals but yours will be! :) I find it easiest to flatten one edge and adhere to an aligator clip or a headband :)

PHEW! What a long post! I hope I was able to explain this right! I would love to see your pictures of your own fabric flowers and I'd love for you to check out my facebook page at: www.facebook.com/juliesbowtique10

Itty Bitty Bag Blog Hop!

Hi everyone! WOW! It has been quite a while since i've actually used any of die-cutting machines but my friend Abby  asked me to be a part of her Itty Bitty Bag Blog Hop and I wanted to join just to CUT something :) You should have come from Jenny over at http://crazyaboutcricut.blogspot.com/ but if you started from me, go ahead and head to the beginning over at Abby's blog :)www.scrapbookaholicbyabby.com. I GUARANTEE you will find much more phenomenal projects done with these cute little bags!

For my project, I used Abby's Dilo en Espanol stamp set "Que Siga la Fiesta" and used "Feliz Navidad" for some quick Christmas treats to send over to my grandparents. My grandparents don't speak English so this stamp set is PERFECT for them and also, the small bags make it easy to be able to hand out or ship :)

If you notice, the candy canes have "Liquid Pearls" as their stripes, my Cameo wasn't really cooperating very well when I cut these candy canes so I had to improvise ;)

All of the stuff, the stamp set and the bitty bags can be found at Abby's Store- http://abby.bigcartel.com/category/ittybags

Also- there is a GIVEAWAY! In order to win your own pack of bitty bags, you must comment on each of the posts and Abby will choose 10 winners! I guarantee you will LOVE these! :) 

Next up is Patty at mynameisscrappy.blogspot.com! 

Update

WOW! It's been a while since I've lasted updated my blog and although I am soooo happy I haven't lost any followers, i'm sad that I haven't kept this up but truth is I have been SOOOOO busy with my new custom hair bow business that I just don't have much time! I am very excited though because I plan on coming back to scrapbooking since Abby has invited me to be a part of her blog hop next week! Woohooo...get to play with my Cricut and Cameo again! :)

In the meantime, I wanted to invite any of you to my Facebook page to like it and to check out some of my hair bows! Some of my customers get super creative in what they want but I am loving what I do! Never a dull moment since I get to work with so many different characters, etc :)

And, I hold a giveaway each time I reach 100 likes so make sure you like my page and share with your friends! :) www.facebook.com/juliesbowtique10

Boutique Bows and Facebook Giveaway!

I have been SUPER busy this past week since 'officially' opening my homemade boutique bow business :) I am loving what I do but I gotta say, didn't realize how busy I'd be! I have quite a few orders to get done today but I wanted to quickly share some bows i've created :) I'm also having a giveaway on my Facebook page, so if you haven't, head over there and like my page and fill out the entry form for a chance to win any one bow of your choice! :) I will be holding a giveaway everytime I reach 100 likes so dont forget to share! :) Here is the link for the giveaway and my page:

Julie's Bowtique Facebook Page

This is my custom Steelers bow for my husband's cousin :) It's roughly 5" with 3 layers and a bottle cap...love it! (Even though I am a Chargers fan!) 

This is a simple Hello Kitty bottle cap bow. Isn't she sweet? :)

Have a great weekend! :)

Exciting news :)

Wow! I'm sorry I haven't posted in over a month, where did the time go? I see I got some new followers, thank you :)) I have been busy with some other things that I haven't had much time to really play on either my Cricut or Cameo but i'm hoping soon to get back to regularly posting :)

On that note, I wanted to let you all know that I have finally started my first Facebook page for my small, homemade hair bows business! :) I'm so excited, I love making them for my daughter so they are inspired by her and all things girly and I just wanted to give you all the link so you can feel free to follow along on FB! I plan on doing giveaways and much more and if you have a small home crafty business, I'd be happy to spread the word around as well! :))

https://www.facebook.com/JuliesBowtique10

Heels Favor Box-Silhouette

Typically, each day I log into the Silhouette online store to see if they have released any new images for me to use my membership money on :) Today I logged on and saw THE CUTEST heels 3D box that I knew I just had to have :)

Cute right? This would be perfect for like a centerpiece for a Bachelorette or really, any girly girl's party! 

Once I cut everything out it took me awhile to figure out how to glue and place things and if you can see reallllly closely, you can see some of the tabs :) I figured out AFTER I glued how to hide those ;) I will post a video by Friday how to make this and in the mean time, I will try to make a cut file for CCR (Cricut Craft Room) for all my Cricut friends :)

Diaper Baby Card- Silhouette

Happy Sunday! :) Today was a great day! Got up early and made it to church and then spent a lazy Sunday watching my kids play while my oldest son was at the circus with my mom :)

Then I realized that my sister in law is scheduled to be induced tomorrow morning at 5am and I still hadn't made her a card! So I decided that once my kiddos went to bed, I would make something. Well, you all know me, know i'm not much of a card maker so I went on pinterest and started looking for ideas. I didn't find anything I felt compelled to scraplift so I googled and came across the cutest diaper card template! So I saved it and then did the whole trace and detach thing (just like a clip art!) and made my own template...the cool thing is that I learned how to perforate my own lines so that I could now score it! YAY! I'll post that video sometime later this week :)

Also- if you haven't noticed, I decided to start labeling my post titles with either Silhouette or Cricut so you will know what machine i'll be using. I know a lot of you use one or the other (I'm still very happy to report I use both!) so this should make things easier :)

Alright- this is my interpretation. Cute right? Instead of making a whole card for the inside, I used a Top Note for the place of wording. Simple and not so bulky!

*Quick note* I am NOT a stamper. For some reason, I never have been able to really get too into it. I love the sentiment stamps but that is as far as I go but for some reason my stamps from Michaels would not stamp well! I think it's cause they are cheaply made or something. So ignore the stamps ;)

This is the top note :) I put the big ol' sentiment on the lower right so that it would give my husband and I plenty of room to sign the card.

If you are interested in the cut file for Silhouette feel free to email me and I will send it to you! :)

Oh and one other thing! 

I have had SCAL 2 FOREVER and I might have used it about a total of 3 times. I am a LAZY SVG'er. I love playing with them "virtually" and admiring them but when it comes to actually cutting it I get SO lazy having to think of all the tiny pieces, blah blah blah. So my son requested a Spiderman die cut (he loves to play with them alongside his legos) and decided to try my SCAL2 (since I don't have the Silhouette Designer Edition. I'll get that when we come back from Disneyland ;) Anyways- I finally created my first SVG! Awesome!

Far from perfect, if you can see, I actually had to cut the black edge because I realized that while the mask had cut, a line around the face hadn't sooooo...that sucked but I think it came out good for even just a scrapbook layout :)

Have a great weekend!: )

Hello Kitty Shape card- Cricut

I know my blog looks really different.. but it's currently in the process of being re-designed (by me! And since I have NO knowledge i'm kinda teaching myself!) so I wanted something a little more simple yet more me. My favorite color combination is pink and black so there you go :)

Today I decided to break out my Hello Kitty Greetings cart and make something. I'm not really a card maker, in fact, cards scare me. I LOVE to make little 3x3 or 4x4 cards cause they are so cute and small but normal size cards just intimidate me. I guess because I see so many BEAUTIFUL cards out there and to be honest, my love is still scrapbooking so I never really try to "improve" my card making skills.

So today, with my daughter right by my side, I decided to make a shape card. Now, this is a little different than your typical shaped card, this one is welded like a word book but only to make a card so the inside is a little smaller. Eh, just something different. I'll probably send this card to my Hello Kitty loving  friend who is having a baby girl in October :)

 I used stickles to "bling" her up a bit and I also "faux" stitched around her to make her stand out a little.

Hello Kitty is 6.5" tall and she was welded to a 9" rectangle (roughly, I'm sorry I forgot to write measurements!) but given enough room to where I could score the card at 4.5". This should have been an A6 card but came out slighly bigger :) I was really contemplating selling my HK Greetings cart (especially with the insane prices that they are going for on Ebay!) but I think I might keep her a while longer :) I can clip art to my heart's content on my Silhouette but there is nothing like paper piecing! 

On that note.... my son Jacob was super bored today (they go back to school in 3 weeks) so he decided he wanted to cut out different lego pictures and make a cute little art project. I captured a picture of him at my scrap table which is a huge deal since he doesn't believe crafting is for boys! :)

Strawberry Shortcake Shape Album

First off, thank you to everyone for your amazingly sweet comments on my Disney shaped album from yesterday! My FB notifications have gone off with them and so many people have commented that you enjoyed my video so i'm SO happy that you liked it! Definitely was the motivator to keep my blog going! :)

I've been on such a "mini album" high (LOL) that tonight I decided to make a slighter bigger version of the shape album but this time I would use ONE clip art image of Strawberry Shortcake and the rest of the pages would be made of Julie's name. How awesome is this idea? You can now make your child (or yourself or whoever!) a personalized album with their absolutely favorite thing! (Julie is REEEEALLY into Disney Princesses right now but she does have a spot for Strawberry and to tell the truth, i'm kinda princessed out at the moment!) hehe ;)

I did the exact steps to weld my shapes together but for the text, all you have to do is choose your favorite font from ANY you have downloaded on your computer :) For this album, I used a font called "Oh! Photo Shoot!" which you can find HERE!

Ok, so I totally promise I have not neglected my Cricut (I have had a few emails asking if I would still do Cricut projects!) so I am actually going to bed tonight and designing something on my Gypsy. As much as CCR is cool lately it has been messing up on me so it's back to my Gypsy :-) Not that I mind, since I was a Circle member in July I was able to download all the digital downloads..hmmmm...maybe that is what i'll do next! =)

Have a great week :))))

Shaped Mini Album- Silhouette

I seem to do my best crafting when i'm EXHAUSTED (or when i've taken some zzzQuil) but for some reason when i'm about to go to sleep, that seems to be when my brain starts coming up with ideas :)

So last night as i'm dozing up, I start to wonder if there was a way I could make a Shaped Mini album (My daughter has me ALL over the Minnie Mouse that I almost wrote it "Minnie Album!" hehehe ;) with clip art and therefore eliminating all those tiny little layers and cuts. So I got onto my Silhouette software and started designing what would now become this: 

Isn't this ADORABLE?? My very first shape album too! 

This album measures 4.75x9 so it's small but oh soooo cute :)

I knew that with Silhouette we could make a shadow out of ANYTHING and so I figured, well, if I could make a shadow with my clip art, then I should be able to weld to make a book and I was RIGHT! Once you get the hang of it, this book is super easy to make and the best part? Is that you can do this with ANY clip art image out there! So my next book will be a Strawberry Shortcake book for princess :)

I posted this up on my FB page and I got soooo many requests for a tutorial so I made a video today on how to do this (in the video I use Hello Kitty clip art). The video is a little long (15 minutes) but I tried to cover everything needed :) I was kind of trying to hurry as I was running late for date night so I hope it's easy to understand, if you have any questions feel free to message me! :)

And yes- I have gotten requests for a Cricut version as well so tomorrow, I will be working with CCR. Now with CCR (or Cricut in general) you can't use Clip art images but this will work with any images with a shadow base. I'll figure something out! :)

Hope you all had a GREAT weekend and if you do make a book I'd LOVE to be able to see! :)) 

Glitter Iphone Case

Hi everyone :) If there is one thing that I absolutely LOVE (besides God, my family and my die cut machines) it's DEFINITELY my iPhone! (And I KNOW that a lot of you will probably agree!). I am always on the quest for the perfect iphone case and so imagine how excited I was the other day when I came across a pin on Pinterest on how to make a glitter iphone case! The cool thing about this technique is that you probably already have the supplies in your craft closet :)

Supplies:

-Iphone Case

-Glitter

-Modge Podge

-Sealer

It's SUPER easy to make, all you have to do is take modge podge and put one coat over your case and dump glitter on top. Let it dry for about 15-30 minutes then you will layer another coat of modge podge and add more glitter. Do this until you are happy with your results. 

Once it's ready and dry all I did was add "Modge Podge spray sealer" over it and let it dry for about an hour and I was done! The previous technique called for nail polish and i'll be honest, it did not work very well for me so I spent a whole $4 on sealer and sprayed it instead. Still a LOT cheaper than the $25 case at Walmart that looks just like this and the best part is that you can use ANY color glitter you want! I used Martha Stewart's glitter which is fine and just held up great :) And with the sealer, you don't have to worry about the glitter coming off :)

Minnie Mouse T-shirt

OMG, 2 posts in one week? I'm on a roll! LOL

As some of you know, we are taking our kids to Disneyland in October and we are SO excited because this will be Julie's first trip out there! She is such a HUGE Mickey and Minnie fan (As well as princesses) so I know it will be so worth it!

I love Pinterest and the other day I saw someone had pinned a post about a Minnie t-shirt made from applique that was zebra print and of course I knew I had to scraplift it! The awesome thing about accumulating and HOARDING so much crafting material is that you sometimes have all the supplies you need for a project therefore, in my mind, making it almost free! (hahaha) :) To make this shirt, all I had to do was buy the shirt from Walmart ($3.88) since I had the heat transfer vinyl already I was good to go!

To me, heat transfer vinyl is soooo much easier to use that regular vinyl because it already comes with backing material, eliminating the transfer tape step :) I used the zebra iron on from Hobby Lobby (I found it in the t-shirt aisle) and it's iron on material that you can cut on your die cut machine! SO ADORABLE! I think they have zebra, pink polka dot, etc. The glitter is the heat vinyl transfer and it stuck like a charm :)

Now, the only thing I have left to do is stitch around the edges so that I can make sure it is secure and she is good to wear it for her first day at Disneyland :) If anyone wants or needs step by step instructions, let me know and I will be happy to make a video showing you how to make your own shirt! :)

Close up! Don't you just love zebra print? Augh, I can never get enough! :)

Have a great weekend! :)

Disney Princess Paper Doll

Hiiiii! :)) As most of you know, Julie is a HUGE HUGE HUGE Disney Princess fan (and while we are at it, I will admit to it too! ;) and she absolutely ADORES the Disney Princess website. (If you haven't checked it out, you really should! It is SO cute!)

So she loves paper dolls and the website has a paper doll template that you can print out and then cut out and glue together to make your own. I thought, hmmm, 'I wonder if I can do it on my Cameo?' and guess what? I did! Therefore saving me having to cut anything out with scissors! (I'm SO very lazy now!) If any of you own the Cameo and would like the template all ready to go, email me at msalmabrooks@yahoo.com and I will send it to you!

Here are a few pics of the doll and of course, my own real life princess :)

This is the pieces after they have been printed and cut by the Cameo

Adorable right? We had to add some "bling" because some words printed out on her dress and we wanted to cover it up!

 And here is my real life princess, Julie, admiring her doll. It's amazing what makes her happy!