Posts filed under ‘Freebies’
10 great free dingbat fonts for diecutters
Free dingbat fonts are a great source of images to use with your diecutter, but how do you know which ones cut nicely? I’ve done the trial and error for you on these ten fonts that are perfect for diecutting. Links are listed below the graphic.
1)09kutups 2)Efon 3)Board Dudes 4)Damask Dings 5)Hibiscus 6)Kalocsai Flowers 7)Peoni Patterns 8)ND Urban 9)Sepeda 10)Sewing Patterns
10 great Doodlebats for diecutters
Class of 2013 free SVG
In honor of my niece, and by request, I’m posting the 2013 version of my “class of” SVG. Hope you enjoy the file and congrats to all your graduates!
Click here to download in SVG format
Click here to download in .studio format
Terms: Free for personal and commercial use. Just don’t sell the file in digital form. Please share the link to this post, rather than the file itself. Thank you!
Vinyl Cost Calculator
I’ve recreated my Vinyl Cost Calculator on Instacalc, along with some instructions (it’s easier than it looks). Type in a few particulars and it quickly returns a comprehensive total cost per square foot. This is great for comparison shopping or for deciding what quantity you should order.
Here’s an annotated screen shot (click to enlarge) with all the info (plus overkill) you need to get started.
Click here for a printable PDF of the above instructions
Cheat Sheet: Cut vs. Cut Edge
I have all kinds of powerful software to work in, but I can’t help exploring Silhouette Studio to try and find out why it behaves as it does. I began researching yet another double line problem and discovered some interesting facts about how SS operates. I figured out how to keep the double lines at bay, which also led me to a way to offset text and keep it editable, and a way to add a quick bleed zone to objects. You know I’m not one to keep the minutiae to myself 
Click here for a printable PDF.
CAS spinner card and template
In January, I took the Clean and Simple Cards 2 class at onlinecardclasses.com. I really enjoyed it, and am just now getting around to doing some of my homework cards. On of the big plusses of the class was getting to see what others in the class were making, and that’s how I found this great spinner card design from Stephanie at Pink Star Creations.
Stephanie’s card (shown above) uses the spinner card dies from Paper Trey Ink, but I created mine (top of page) with Silhouette Studio. (If you don’t have a Silhouette, you can still use the template with your PTI die and the free version of Silhouette Studio.)
As you can see, I lifted Stephanie’s design pretty much completely, except that I used a “real” paper airplane where she used a stamp, (which was our class assignment that day.) My template also includes a paper airplane digistamp if you’d rather use that. It will probably hold up better in an envelope, for instance.
If you aren’t familiar with spinner cards, they use a simple sandwich of some foam and 2 disks (often pennies) to travel through a slot and create a spinning element that really makes for a fun card.
What I love about this idea, and turning it into a Silh Studio template, is that you can so quickly change it up for a different theme. Bring in a new image, drag and drop a pattern, customize the sentiment and a new card is born.
My advice is to keep this template on your hard drive instead of in your SS library. When you want to use it, open it, immediately do a “Save As…” and rename it. That way the original is preserved, as well as all the placement on the mat, which you lose when you use the library. I’ve also included instructions in the margins of the files as shown in the screen capture below.
Download the Silhouette Studio template here.
Download the SVG template here.
Here are a couple more cards I made with the same template and artwork from Lettering Delights. The first one uses a bee from the Bugaboo set and a honeycomb image, from the Reindeer Games paper pack, oddly enough. (I did have to change the colors from reds to golden yellows.) For the monkey card I used an image and pattern from the Monkey Around collection.
All of my cards, and a few extra sentiments I included on the template, feature LD Cotton Candy font.
Special thanks to Stephanie for the great card and for giving me permission to share the template based on it!
Silhouette software comparison updated
It’s been over a year since I visited the details of each software package available to drive a Silhouette cutter. There’s still no clear winner for everyone, because so much depends on what you want to do, how much learning curve you are willing to endure and how much you want to spend, not to mention personal preference. I have made a radical update to my comparison chart to help you choose what’s right for you among Silhouette’s own software, Make the Cut or Sure Cuts a Lot. Funtime Pro is also an option now, but I’ve not had a copy to compare so the items on the chart in that column are provisional at best. Hoping for some input from Funtime users on this. I know many of you are like me, and already use more than one of these software packages. In that case, I hope this chart will help you find the best one for the task at hand.
In addition, I’ve added a detailed chart on file formats. Most of you can probably skip this, but if you are interested in being able to cut a particular file format (or a lot of them) then this may help you make a decision. This information may also be helpful to designers choosing which file formats to offer.
(Click each image to open/download the corresponding PDF)
Note: this chart was revised 3/24/13 to include new features in Make-the-Cut v4.6.0
Cheat Sheet: File Formats in Silhouette Studio
It turns out that the question about what file formats Silhouette Studio can use is not all that easy to answer, partly because the facts vary quite a bit from the official Silhouette America information. I think I got it sorted out and into chart form. Hope this is helpful to some of you. Click here for a printable PDF.
If you need help understanding the difference between vectors and bitmaps, this video should help.
Christmas sketch freebie
Here’s another sketch file I was able to centerline trace with Adobe Illustrator for machine sketching. The scan above shows what it looks like sketched with a Sharpie pen in my Silhouette SD.
Download the .studio file here or the .svg version here. Please remember that this file is only for sketching, and is not suitable for cutting.
The original was a free vector from Vector Graphics Blog so if you like this file leave them some love, too.
Freebie for sketching
I’ve been trying to learn to convert different kinds of images to sketch files (single line/open path) with mostly disappointing results, but here’s a pumpkin border I was able to successfully centerline trace in Illustrator. The scan above shows what it looks like sketched with an orange Sharpie pen. I know you talented folks will make some lovely cards with this one!
Download the .studio file here or the .svg version here. Please remember that this file is only for sketching, and is not suitable for cutting.
The original was a free vector from Vector Graphics Blog so if you like this file leave them some love, too.
Banner card and a share
The CAS-ual Fridays CFC67 challenge this week is to use banners and flags and it is timely because I’ve been wanting to make a banner print-and-cut with my Silhouette. The bicycle built for two is from Lauren Ashpole’s awesome Bikes dingbat font. There’s a little more vintage model I didn’t see until after I’d made this that I would use next time. The grass is washi tape I ran through a border punch, probably not worth the trouble versus just using paper.
I am sharing the banner files with text paths so you can do this by just adding and editing your own text. Enjoy and let me see what you make with it.
