Adventures with my Silhouette Portrait

I'm not sure if they've ever studied this, but I swear pregnancy brings out the crafty side of me. It must have to do with the "nesting" effect but suddenly I want to work on projects that have been sitting around for.. lets just say "a while".

So I must confess.. I was one of the lucky winners of a silhouette portrait from the fabulous blog: Thrifty and Thriving TWO years ago. Literally 4 days before my son was born. So, as you can imagine, in the midst of learning how to be a parent, I just didn't have time to do anything with it aside from small simple cutting. I did manage to make some cute things for his first birthday last year.

It was pretty simple, but I was glad to learn how to use the machine. The first thing I learned was how sticky a new mat is! I still have that candle burnished into my mat.

Fast forward to his second birthday. Momma went a little crazy with the Elmo stuff, but it was a lot of fun! I used this link for the files: Scrappin by Kris. Then I used this link: Silhouette School Blog to figure out how to convert an SVG file to something I could use in the free software with Silhouette. It didn't take long to figure out and once I did, I was an Elmo making fool!

So after that I decided I wanted to try my hand at vinyl. A friend recommended API Crafters Supply because their prices are good and they ship quickly. I ordered a roll of white, a roll of black and a few colors by the foot, just to play around with. To my surprise, when I opened the boxes I had an extra sample roll of the Heat Transfer Vinyl (I believe in holographic blue) and a pink ribbon decal for breast cancer awareness in October. I had considered getting the HTV but thought I'd wait to see how I like using regular vinyl. Sure enough, I used it the first time last night and I'm hooked!

I made the necklace image based on another I saw online, if I can figure out how to add it to this blog, I will! I also made a little sister onsie. They were super easy and look even better than the photos due to the type of glitter HTV.

I also made a few decals to "test" out around the house. I used a phone charger template from silhouette school and made a heart stethoscope car decal.

I'm officially hooked!

Happy Crafting :)