Affinity Photo

Live video learning how to cutout, slice and crop in Affinity Photo.

DIY Unicorn Phone Case

Personalized phone case

This week please welcome our guest blogger, Angie Scrivner. Angie uses a larger size vinyl cutter with Sure Cut's A Lot program. She can cut vinyl for large signs as well as small pieces for phone cases as we see here.

Hello, I’m  Angie, I have been married to my husband for almost 33 years, have 2 grown children and our first grandchild in December 2017.  I am the owner of a small business, Houndstooth Hunny plus I drive a school bus.

I love creating things for people and seeing my work put a smile on someones face. Now let's get started!

Supplies 
Items with * have a link to the products

*Glitter  translucent vinyl in Yellow, light blue, silver, and purple. Plain pink vinyl in bubblegum (I used Oracal 651) Transfer tape.

* Black iphone 6 cover

* Similar  Cut file for the unicorn face with CC Acrylic for $.90

 Vinyl Cutting Machine

* Vinyl weeding tool

 Vinyl application tool 

I start off by opening the file that I received with my iphone cover. Once I have this open I open the unicorn file that I purchased* and resize it to fit the phone cover. 

This is Craft Chameleon unicorn cut file that comes free with the purchase of their acrylic unicorn blank. It wasn't available at the time this post was written.

After I get everything the correct size, I break it all apart and decide what I want to cut first and cut it on my vinyl cutter.

I wipe my phone cover with a paper towel and a spray of alcohol, to be sure the cover is clean and has no oils from my hands or anything is on it. Upon cutting each item I place them all on a mat on the desk until I have everything cut out.

Once everything is cut out, I weed each piece of cut vinyl and place all side by side so I don’t lose anything while I’m working.

I begin by placing the horn and ears on the cover. I try to center it, leaving room for a name underneath. The horn and ears are your starting point, once you have applied these and smoothed them and removed the transfer tape, you will now start applying the flowers.

Apply the two outside flowers first and the middle one last, this helps everything fit together. When flowers are done, apply the inside of ears one side at a time.  

Continue applying your vinyl parts until you have your unicorn done. At this time you will apply the name.  I also try to center this.

Make sure that you have used your application tool and smoother all of your vinyl and that you have removed all transfer tape. This makes a really cute gift for the unicorn lover in your life! 

Burlap Pillow Cover Tutorial for Valentine's Day

Photo Credits to Renee Crowe

Today I would like to introduce Renee Crowe as our guest blogger!  We are so pleased to have her show you how to use one of our burlap pillow covers and htv to fashion some seasonal Valentine's Day decor!

Supplies Needed:
*Burlap Pillow Cover from Craft Chameleon
*Glitter Heat Transfer Vinyl from Craft Chameleon
Pillow or pillow insert
Heat PressSilhouette Cameo and Studio Software or Electronic Cutting Machine (Cricut, Scan n Cut) with coordinating software
Items  with * are links to Craft Chameleon products



Ready to design my pillow cover, I went to the Silhouette Store. I selected the Tree Trunk with the heart for my Valentine's theme.

I wanted a font that had hearts in it, so I headed over to dafont.com. They have thousands of freeware/shareware fonts. So I searched and after choosing the Heartland font, I downloaded it to my computer.

Now to start my design. I decided to do my tree trunk in brown htv and my words in glitter htv. I kept it simple using only two colors.

My husband always tells me that he loves me forever and a day so I used that saying. I turned my heat press to 300 degrees and so it would be heating up.

I cut my design from my vinyl (remember to always reverse the design when you are using HTV).

After cutting my vinyl I arrange it on my pillow cover. When using both glitter HTV and regular HTV remember they have different temperature setting so make sure you remember that when cutting.

 Personally I like to do my colors one at a time, so first I do my brown and then heat press my pink. I use a Teflon sheet to cover my vinyl and heat press for fifteen seconds. To place the vinyl. Repeat for the glitter words. Then follow the manufacturers' instructions to complete the press.

Craft Chameleon has a facebook group were all the members share tips and tricks for heat pressing on burlap. Join the group here and be sure to answer the questions to get in!

I use a pillow form for the inside of the pillow and now it is ready to use. 

Easy and cute décor for Valentine’s Day!

Beautiful Acrylic Bookmark with Crosses

Hi Everyone, I’m  Faye Mitchell and truly excited by Jamie’s request to make a guest blog post.  I’ve decided to make a fancy charm and bead bookmark using mostly Craft Chameleon supplies.  A few items have come from other stores.

Items needed:

Acrylic Bookmark - Craft Chameleon

1.5” Acrylic Cross - Craft Chameleon

15/16” Acrylic Circle - Craft Chameleon

Lobster Clasp - Craft Chameleon

Triangle Bail - Craft Chameleon

Jump rings - Craft Chameleon

Extension Links - Craft Chameleon

Tassels - Craft Chameleon

Charms - Craft Chameleon (not pictured)

Beads

Headpins

SVG Design Program

Vinyl

Jewelry Making Tools  

Diamond Reamer - Craft Chameleon

The first thing I did was make a template of my acrylic bookmark in Silhouette Studio Designer Edition so I could make sure I cut my vinyl out in the correct size.  The acrylic bookmark from Craft Chameleon is 1.5" x 4" so I drew a rectangle with these measurements. 

As you can see I actually drew the rectangle at 4.5” and then put a small line across it at 4” and
put the circle/hole in it.  This part is not necessary but I did it to help me envision the final product.

The next thing I did was decide on what pattern I wanted on my bookmark.  Since my bookmark is for a friend who lost her sister I decided to go with a cross design.  I searched the silhouette design store and found the perfect cross shape and purchased it.  Once I had it purchased I edited it to the size I wanted and duplicated it multiple times so that it formed the design I wanted and covered the entire bookmark.  My actual bookmark is clear but so you could see the design in the Studio I changed it to black for the picture. 

Now I decided on what quote I wanted to put on the bookmark.  I decided to use a bible scripture for comfort.  Using the text tool I typed out the quote and selected my font and sized it to fit the bookmark and charms.  I used the font “Maxwell Bold” for all the wording.  I used the templates from Craft Chameleon to get the sizing correct.  In order to prevent waste of vinyl I used the subtract feature under modify to cut the cross background pattern down to the size of the bookmark.

Once I finished all my designing, I cut and weeded the vinyl and lastly applied it to the acrylic pieces.

 

Make sure you peel the clear plastic coverings off the acrylic pieces first before applying the vinyl.  Then you take your transfer tape and pick up the weeded vinyl pieces and place them onto the acrylic pieces.  

After I have the vinyl applied to the pieces I poke the hole in the acrylic with the diamond reamer I purchased from Craft Chameleon.  I also rub it around the edge of the cross and bookmark acrylic pieces to trim off the excess vinyl from the backs.

Now that I have all the vinyl applied I sit them to the side to cure while I work on assembling the hardware findings and make the bead dangles.  

To start I usually go ahead and attach the triangle bail to the bookmark even though it doesn’t have to be attached right away.  Mainly I do this just so I have this part done and I don’t have to worry about a little helper getting a hold of the triangle bail and putting it in his mouth or just running off with it. 

Next I move onto the bead dangles, once again to prevent a certain little helper from getting ahold of little pieces and scattering them around the house.  Bead dangles are pretty easy to make.  To make a bead dangle you first take your headpin… the ones I use are just plain 2” headpins that I picked up from a big box store.  

You then just thread the beads (also gotten from a big box store in this case) onto the headpin. 

Once you thread your beads onto the headpin comes the tricky part.  You take your round nose pliers and bend the end of the headpin around to make a loop. Once the loop is formed you can trim the excess and manipulate the wire to your desired shape and size.  Then you use a jump ring and attach the bead dangle to the lobster clasp. 

Next I move onto attaching the charms, tassels, and small acrylic pieces.  I do this with a combination of jump rings and extension links depending on the size of each of the pieces and how I want them to hang.

After the vinyl is cured I typically seal the small pieces with either mod podge or clear nail polish.  Once your sealer is dry you can attach the beaded charmed piece using the lobster hook to the triangle bail on the bookmark piece. 

TA-DA you have a finished your fancy charm and beaded bookmark to enjoy the next time you read a long book!!!