Another new Adventure.

I have a brother who will be 84 in a couple of week's time. I don't see him very often so I wanted to make a nice card for him. He used to be in the Navy so I thought something nautical might fit the bill.

You will know from previous posts that I have struggled a bit to get my Silhouette Cameo to cut anything more intricate than basic shapes with paper and card. I belong to a Silhouette group on Facebook and there are some clever and generous designers who post there, and they often share the files they have made. I download some I like and every now and then I have a go at cutting one, with mixed success. But I have noticed that most of the people in the group are mainly using vinyl. They make tiles and 'floating frames', or add decals to lunch boxes and drinking bottles etc. or else they use heat transfer vinyl to press onto clothes, and all these are to sell from their etsy shops. I am not interested in starting a business. (I am retired and loving it!), so I haven't paid much attention, but it did strike me that the vinyl might cut better as has no fibres to block the blades.

So I took one of the downloaded files, and opened it in my Cameo. I found it needed a bit of tidying up, smoothing out some lines and removing some of the finest details. I was resizing it right down from about a 12" square, to fit an A6 card, so some of the finer lines merged together and needed to be altered.

I went to chat to a young Spanish couple from the village who I knew were sign-makers, and she gave me a couple of off-cuts of vinyl to try, so I set up a navy blue piece and did a trial cut. Once I was happy with the settings, I set it off, and few minutes later my cut was done. It cut beautifully. You can see how fine some of the lines are.

Then came the fun bit. All the unwanted areas had to be weeded out while it was still on its protective backing. I used a pricking tool and some very pointed tweezers. I knew I couldn't lift the design to place it on the card so I hunted through some rarely opened boxes and found an ancient strip of Woodware peel-off transfer paper. Amazingly it was still sticky, and I used that to lift the design and transfer it onto my prepared card.

For the card itself I used a plain white blank and distressed the edges with my favourite ink pad - Memento Paris Dusk. I also added a little of the colour to the main card. Then, with the same ink pad, I stamped the water droplets by Ryn, (Don't you just love that stamp?!). The anchor fitted over this and was soon rubbed down in place. I used tiny bits of the same vinyl to die cut the greeting and it was finished.

I enjoy messing around with designs like this, and would love to have a go at designing my own. So I think this could be the start of a new adventure!

I shall link this card to Make it Monday 151,  where Anything goes.