Silhouette Designs Successes and Failures

Chris bought me a Silhouette Cameo for my birthday back in May. It is similar to a Cricut, but it does so much more! My motivation for choosing the Silhouette is the fact that you can create your own designs. The night my Silhouette arrived Chris's friend, Mason, was in town from Wyoming. The guys decided to invite more guys over and grill out. While they were having guy time around the grill and in the garage I was able to set up my new toy! I unpacked everything on our dining room table and had two laptops running simultaneously with my Cameo in the middle.

Meet my Cameo....

After I watched the "how to DVD" and set everything up, I decided to make a monogram for my sewing travel case. This design was extremely easy and afterwards I thought I could make anything!

The next design I attempted was our school mascot/logo, and lets just say I jumped from easy to professional level of difficulty by attempting that design. Here is a picture of our logo that I was trying to recreate.

 This project was an EPIC FAIL! I didn't take pictures, and I wasted so much vinyl trying to figure this guy out. I realized quickly that my best bet was to start with a black and white logo. This image had way to many color layers and I could not figure out what needed to be cut and what did not need to be cut. ***The Silhouette Cameo is not a printer, it is a cutting machine, so every line you make is a cut line. After you cut your image you use a hook tool to peal away unwanted pieces and you are left with a one color decal.

In the end I scrapped the school logo project. Maybe I will try it again in the future, but right now our little Squire is not meant to be a vinyl decal.

 For my next project I decided to down grade the difficulty and try my hand at The Florida State University Spear Logo. I love all things FSU and I couldn't wait to unleash the endless Seminole craft possibilities that my Cameo could provide. This is what I was going for with my design...

I should have started out with a one color image, but I didn't learn that lesson well the first time. Once again I failed, but this time I took pictures.

Attempt 1:

I couldn't figure out how to make a cut line that wasn't an outline. So I couldn't get one side to remain garnet and one side to peal away. GRRRRRR! I was so frustrated!

I nearly gave up, but I finally got the hang of the program!!! You can see the original image and my design side by side below. I made a couple of changes, but it still screams SEMINOLE PRIDE to me!