Thursday, April 21, 2011

Alternative Easter Eggs

Looking to stray from the traditional solid color variety Easter egg this year? Here are some and great easy alternative eggs you can make using your Lettering Delight's SVG's or graphics. Begin by dying your eggs. You can use the store bought dyes or you can try this easy recipe at home.


Easter Egg Dye:
Boil 3 cups of water. Remove from heat and add 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. Now add a few drops of liquid food color. Drop in eggs and let them sit until they achieve the shade you desire.Be sure to let the eggs dry completely before you add any addition details.


Birdhouse Egg: Using the solid roof from the Spring is Bliss birdhouse basket and the butterfly from Sweet Nothings Tag Cards, I began by sizing down the roof to 3" by 1.75" and the butterfly to 1.5" by .75".  I cut them out along with a simple circle that I created in Make-the-Cut. I punched a hole through the top middle of the roof and threaded my string securing a knot oh the underside. I adhered my butterfly to the roof and finished with a ribbon embellishment. Using a hot glue gun, I glued the roof and circle to the egg.



Pretty Flowers:
These cute and easy flowers came from the Simple Flowers Shape SVG. I merely cut them out, attached together with a small brad and then adhered to the egg with a glue gun.


Eggs in Disguise:
Ok, so we can't get enough of our Photo booth SVG'sUsing Funny Faces and Mustache Mania we gave our eggs some pretty  nifty disguises. I bet you can't tell whose who;)!


So have fun, and get creative! 

Friday, April 15, 2011

Friday Freebie: Easter Beastie Bag





















It's Friday, and you know what that means...Freebie time! We've turned our Easter Beastie into a treat bag just for you! So hurry and gobble up this freebie before its too late. Offer ends Sunday.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Screen Print Shirts using Your Digital Cutting Machines
















We just had to try an idea we got from a really talented customer, Shelly of Marina, CA. You can see her post to the idea gallery here. Since we didn't have any flocking on hand, we decided to try freezer paper stenciling.

Materials:

  • Freezer paper
  • Fabric paint
  • Foam Brushes
  • Iron
  • T-shirt or onsie
  • Digital Cutting Machine or Exacto Knife and Cutting Mat


Using the tie from the Funny Face SVG and a mustache from Mustach Mania SVG, we began by laying a sheet of freezer paper (dull side down) onto our cutting mat. From there we cut out our images. Try to make sure you cut your image in the middle of the freezer paper, to ensure you have lots of protection when you are stenciling. If you don't have a cutting machine, you can use an exacto knife and a cutting mat to cut out your stencil. The only difference for this one is place the freezer paper waxy side down so that it sticks to your non-sticky mat.

We used these settings:

  • Pressure: medium
  • Speed: medium
  • Depth: 5
Carefully remove your image from the cutting mat. Make sure you put another piece of freezer paper or a piece of cardboard inside the shirt to protect from any paint that might seep through. Position the image onto your shirt shiny side down and iron it on. Do not use steam when ironing.

Now use your foam brush to gently apply the paint onto the shirt. Make sure you wait for it to dry before you remove the stencil, you may want a 2nd coat of paint. 

Thank you to Shelly for the amazing idea! And don't forget, all of our SVG sets are only $2 right now, so hurry and get yours now, and start painting!

Friday, April 1, 2011

DPI and Exporting File Sizes

Adobe Illustrator exports files out at 72 DPI.  Inkscape exports files out at 90 DPI.  Since most craft users only have access to Inkcape (a free, open-source program), most cutting based software is set to 90 DPI as a standard.  Translation: Our files at 72 DPI import in at 80% the size they are supposed to.  Solution: Change the import settings.  MTC and SCAL both accommodate users in this aspect.  Our cards are actually set at 5.5 x 2.12 give or take...so they hold true to the size they are supposed to.