Lemon Squeezy Home

Two Shirts, House Plans, and a little Silhouette Tutorial

By

As you’ve probably noticed, things have slowed down a bit over here.

I’ve felt a bit more in control of my life this way—caught up on laundry and housework, and not so preoccupied with sewing/crafting.  My kids have definitely seen more of me, which has been wonderful.

We are also in the process of working with a draftsman to design our home that we will be building this year.  I am super excited about it!!!  And it will someday (maybe not right away) have a large craft room in a sunny, upstairs location.  Squeal!!!

Ideally, our dream house would be set somewhere beautiful, like England or elsewhere in Europe where it is green and lush and romantic with large trees, streams, and sunlight that looks like it does in this picture: Fullscreen capture 3202011 113901 PM.bmp

photo source

Beautiful, isn’t it?!

We are moving somewhere that isn’t so much like that, but somewhere that I feel will be a great place to raise our kids.  We’ll have 3 acres.  THREE ACRES!!!  What will we do with it all?  Probably watch the tumbleweeds grow ;).

Anyways, it’s been busier around here and will remain so for a while.  And I decided that the blog needed to slow down a bit so I don’t go insane.  I hope you understand!  On to two simple crafts!

DSCF5143

I’m really happy the Silhouette cuts fabric!  I just used Heat n’ Bond on the back, rather than purchasing their fabric interfacing.DSCF5110

Did you see this Stunt Man shirt on Under the Sycamore?  LOVE it!  And it’s so easy!  Ashley took the idea from a J.Crew shirt and definitely improved it by turning the words upside down, in my opinion!

DSCF5138

My son received this shirt for his birthday and every time he shows someone, he has to try out a handstand or flip upside down on the couch.  He really doesn’t think people can read it unless he does that :).  DSCF5125

The second shirt I made was for my niece.  She is in a school where she learns in English and in Mandarin.  Her name is Eden and she LOVES anything Chinese because of this great program. DSCF5115

So I made a shirt that spells her name in Mandarin.  My brother-in-law pointed me to google translate to find out how to spell her name. DSCF5111

And I wanted to show really quickly something awesome I learned to do in the Silhouette program.  So sorry if you don’t have a Silhouette, but if you do, hopefully this will help someone!

First off, when you are opening an image to trace in your Silhouette program, make sure that when you click on the file to open, that you change it to say All Files under Files of type.  Otherwise you won’t be able to find any pictures to use the tracing function!Fullscreen capture 3132011 13346 PM

So find your image and open it.Fullscreen capture 3132011 13252 PM

Select the area to trace.  I hit just the top trace button.  Fullscreen capture 3132011 13652 PM

Then take the image you traced, move it over away from the trace lines…Fullscreen capture 3132011 13659 PM

And delete the picture you opened.Fullscreen capture 3132011 13705 PM

Now I don’t know if this happens to you when you trace, but it does to me.  There are two outlines for the image.  Which means your Silhouette will cut both of those lines and you don’t want that.  Maybe there is a tutorial for this already on the Silhouette blog, but I didn’t feel like searching for it and was happy that I figured it out!  So double click your image to make those dots all appear.  Fullscreen capture 3132011 13712 PM

Now do you see that red line?  I just clicked between two points on the outline that I wanted to delete.  Then I hit “delete point” over there on the right.Fullscreen capture 3132011 13717 PM

Which then shifts the red line between the next two point.  So I just kept hitting delete point over and over until all the outline was gone.  Fullscreen capture 3132011 13726 PMFullscreen capture 3132011 13749 PM

Then I repeated with the other character for Eden’s name.Fullscreen capture 3132011 13939 PM

Now it is ready to cut!Fullscreen capture 3132011 14008 PM

DSCF5112

Happy Monday, everyone!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  4. that is so cool and very exciting that you’re building a house!! wow. I’m glad you’re slowing things down a bit (even though I didn’t really notice you had slowed down), I think it just shows that none of us are super heros and can accomplish all things all the time. I’m also trying to step back and take a huge break from guest blogging, whew! :)

  6. I had no idea you could cut fabric with a Silhouette. Neat! I got one for my birthday and have yet to use it. BTW, the Chinese shirt looks great!

  7. Eden loves her shirt! As soon as she opened it she knew it was Chinese, but they haven’t learned their names in Chinese yet, so we had to tell her what it said. She’s so excited to have her name, in Chinese, on a shirt!

    I’d love a house in Europe too. Hope you can get everything you want in your new house! 3 acres, WOW!!!

  10. I’m so hopelessly un-craft-like that I don’t even know what a Silhouette is!!

    Where are you moving? I’m so excited for you!! (It isn’t closer to me, is it?) :)

  11. Thanks for the tute! Great shirts!

    Does the Heat n Bond really work? I used some before and it just wouldn’t cut all the way through.

  12. Thanks for the tip to just use heat ‘n bond! I was thinking I’d have to use the Silhouette brand product and wasn’t looking forward to having to spend that money.

  13. So funny! My daughter goes to a school where they learn mandarin and has a good friend named Eden…

    These are great! I would love to have one of those little machines. Birthday gift perhaps?

  14. Great idea on the t-shirts. How do you use the Heat and Bond with the fabric and the Silhouette? Do you iron the fabric to the heat and bond first, then cut, then iron it on the shirt? What settings would you use to cut it on the Silhouette?

  15. Hi Christie, that is so exciting! I would love to have my dream sewing room someday too. :) Maybe share the picture on your blog someday?

    Time management is a big issue for me too, I had to cut back a lot on sewing/computer time to balance my time better. Kids grow up so fast…

  16. How exciting! Three acres sounds glorious!

    Good luck with everything and I love that Stunt Man shirt. What a cute idea!

  17. I was wondering – how did the heat and bond work with the silhouette? Since you didn’t use the silhouette brand interfacing I didn’t know if it messed it up in any way, or if it worked just fine. I am getting a silhouette for my birthday and am doing some research as far as what all I need to buy with the actual silhouette machine. Thanks so much for taking the time to answer, and I love your blog! Thanks, Sonya

  18. Hey everyone with questions:). The heat and bond worked great for me. I think I had to adjust the thickness to it’s highest setting. I ironed on the heat and bond before cutting, but I also used pretty THIN cotton, so that might have made a difference. Good luck!

  21. Well, I do love your dream home. I live in Kent, England and it is beautiful. Lush, green, flowers, trees, it’s got it all. Did you notice the one thing I didn’t mention? Sun. Yep. Not much sun around here, not even close to the amount of sun you get in Utah, in fact, my kids feel like throwing party when the sun comes out, me too. But I guess you can’t have it all and have to trade the green for the sun. Thanks for all you cool inspiration.

  22. Sorry to bother you with this again, but I don’t know who else to ask about my Silhouette questions and get a real answer! Is the heat and bond that you used the same thing as the Silhouette heat transfer material? I guess I just don’t know what I have to have in order to do projects – and I don’t want to have to buy something that is more expensive if I can use something else that is cheaper. Thanks for your help! ~Sonya

  23. Sonya, I’m not sure what it is the silhouette company sells. I watched something for that owl,and it seemed like something they ironed, then peeled the backing off, but you’d have to double check on their blog for that. Today I used it for thicker fabric and it didn’t work quite as well, but it was still awesome and saved a lot of time. I just had a little more cutting to do.

  24. I can relate to that little girl — when I was little, my favorite song was “Praise to the Man” because I thought it was Chinese. Yeah, “mingling” was a word I didn’t know, but apparently as a kid I did know the words “ming” and “ling” were Chinese!

  25. I was doing a search on how to use Heat N Bond for the silhouette machine…this is the first post that popped up. What a fun surprise to see the Stunt Man shirt here! Now off to attempt the silhouette fabric stuff…