Giveaway: Silhouette digital cutting tool

I've never been terribly excited about owning a digital cutter, thinking my trusty fingers and low tech X-acto knife can handle most jobs. But recently I received a Silhouette digital cutter to test and review. I'm afraid my poor old X-acto knives are going to feel neglected, because this thing is great. And you can win your own! Read on.

The Silhouette is a cute little number that's smaller than a printer, with a power cord and a USB cable that connects to your Mac or PC. After some confusion, I finally realized the accompanying instruction book is for old Windows software that doesn't look anything like the new Mac Silhouette Studio software I downloaded. Once I ignored the instruction book and referred to the Users Manual in the Help section of the new software, I was off and running. It's actually really easy to use, despite my first impression.

Now that I've got the hang of it, I'm super excited. The machine comes with 50 free shapes to cut, or you can choose from hundreds of other options available for 99 cents: boxes, cupcake wrappers, doilies, and more. Shapes are scalable and easy to modify. Or create your own shapes with the software, which works like a pared-down version of Adobe Illustrator. Or actually create your shapes in Illustrator and send them to the Silhouette. It will cut text-weight paper, card stock, adhesive vinyl, magnet or tattoo paper, and heat transfer material.

My first project was a little box. I pushed a button and the entire template was cut out in less than 30 seconds while I stood by and drank coffee. And of course it's perfect.

Then I forced it to cut something tiny and delicate from self-adhesive vinyl, just to see if it would explode. Also perfect. Dang. I'm not doing that with my X-acto knife.

For lots of project ideas, see here. As I try other things, I'll let you know how it goes.

The Giveaway: October 1 –11, 2010 (Now closed)
Want to win your own cutter? One lucky commenter will win a Silhouette machine (a $299.99 value) with everything you'll need to make it go: Software for Windows XP/Vista or Mac, a power cable, USB cable, 2 cutting mats (one for thick media, one for thin media), one cutting blade, and a $10 gift card to the Silhouette online store.

To enter the random drawing:
Leave a comment on this post by Monday, October 11 at midnight CDT. Open to US residents only; sorry! The company doesn't ship internationally. Silhouette winners from other giveaways are not eligible. Be sure to include a link or other way to contact you. The winner will be contacted and announced in this post on October 12.

Update: Giveaway is now closed. Commenter 1469, Kel O., was randomly selected and has been given the good news!

DIY heat transfer tote

Still experimenting with my Silhouette digital cutter, I tried out some heat transfer material that came with the machine. The result is this tote. I cut my own design from Adobe Illustrator, which went beautifully.

When it came to ironing the pieces onto the bag, I had a little trouble. Though you can't see it in the photo, some little bits of the black shapes aren't quite stuck down all the way on the tote. Maybe I can go back and fix that somehow, but I'm not optimistic. It was a big struggle to get them to adhere to such coarse canvas, so I'd recommend ironing this stuff onto something smoother. I had a wrestling match with my iron and the tote bag. We had to roll around on the ground in a fist fight with some sweating and cursing, but I won. Mostly.

DIY compliment bunting

I've created a downloadable file for making compliment bunting. When you need to tell someone they're super, this might be just the thing. Use it for birthdays, promotions or when your friend is sad. Everybody likes compliments. By the way, your hair looks very nice today.

If you happen to have a Silhouette digital cutter and Adobe Illustrator, it's fun to cut out the letters. (You'll need the Cutting Master 2 Craft ROBO plug-in, available here for Mac and PC. Install it, then open the bunting PDF in Illustrator. Delete the extra pages, then go to File > Cutting Master and cut your triangle of choice.)

Or just print your favorite PDF pages on cardstock and cut them out. Punch small holes in the corners and string the bunting.

The PDF contains six pages—three designs in two colors each. Download the complimentary compliment bunting file right here.

Butterfly invitation template

Let's call this stationery week at How About Orange. Friends inexplicably keep marrying and having babies, so here are some shower invitations I made with a pal last week.

The mom-to-be registered for purple butterfly things, so I had to hold off on the orange cheetah-themed shower that could have been awesome. I think this one might be more tasteful. I made the design in Adobe Illustrator, then cut the cards out with the Silhouette machine. The party information is printed on an interior sheet. It's stapled inside the card along the spine to form a mini booklet. Chartreuse envelopes from Papersource plus these stamps finished it off.

You can download the butterfly template as a PDF file, a zipped Studio file for Silhouette users, or a zipped SVG file for Cricut users. And folks without a digital cutter will have to make do with an X-acto knife. Eek, that's a little bit daunting.