Many of you were interested on my Facebook page when i showed some awesome digital stamps by one of my all time favourite brands Sweet Stamp Shop. For those who love digital stamps, you can find them HERE and HERE...(if you don't like digital don't worry i also stock the real deal in my store HERE )
Anyway this tutorial is on the digital stamp set using Digi file #1. I'm using Silhouette Studio 2 but the same rules apply in Studio 3 and you don't need the designer edition :).
As You know PDF format is not supported in the silhouette studio program, so to get it into a format I could work with I went to a free file conversion site here HERE, and changed the PDF to a JPEG file (follow the instructions on this site to get your files).
Next I opened one of the pages up in my Silhouette program like this:
As this point DO NOT alter the page in any way to keep the stamps true to the size the designer wishes to keep them at.
Next you need to select one of the stamps by going to the Trace section. This symbol and section here:
Select Trace area > Place a box around one of the Stamps > you will notice it comes up with yellow lines (in most cases these will be perfect but you may need to play with the high filter and threshold to get a clean yellow line around the outside of the image) > Click Trace and Detach (under Apply Trace method)
Your box should the disappear and you can then grab your image and move it away from the original sheet like this:
Now we have our image separate we need to create a border around the outside so once we have printed the images we can cut them. To do this go to you Trace setting again > Select trace area > draw a box around the image > Click on trace outer edge. Box will disappear and bring up a red line around the outside)
WARNING: DO NOT MOVE THE IMAGE AT ALL AS IT WILL MAKE YOUR CUT OUT OF LINE
Next go to your offset box which looks like this:
Click on the image you are working with so the dimensions box comes up, and click offset.
Your image should look something like this:
I then change my offset distance to .045 and apply to get a nice border of white around the outside. If you want more of a border then change your distance accordingly. You will need to leave a bit of a border to make sure the outside of your image remains once cut.
You need to then group your image : re highlight your image so the dimensions box highlights the image and lines > Right Click > Group
Repeat this process for all the stamps until you end up with a blank page and all your stamps have been detached. You can do the stamps all at once i.e. highlight the entire page > trace the entire page and then trace and detach. But i find not all the stamps will trace nicely the same (in this case the apple at the bottom because of the broken lines and white areas to get a good trace i had to play with trace settings and ended up tracing twice, and using my eraser to try and get the trace as close as possible to the line, (in fact it was being so annoying i ended up editing the nodes to make a nice outline) I also had a few issues with the coconut and had to play a little...) and you will need to remember to ungroup and release compound path so you can work with each one separately for offset line.
Your page should now look something like this:
Now we need to prepare the page for a print and cut:-
Firstly change your page settings to printer settings if you have not done so already
Next go to you registration marks box which looks like this, and turn your registration marks on:
Move your images around the page until they are all inside the grey area, you may need to rotate some to get them to fit (I have read you can go over the grey line but I'm yet to try this out for myself). Your page now should look something like this:-
Now we need to ungroup all the images (highlight entire page, right click, ungroup)
Go to Cut settings box (the following steps are slightly different in version 3) and click uncut first, then click cut edge, this should bring up an outline on the edge (offset line) of all your stamps
You can group all your images back as a whole or separately, depending on how you think you will use them at a later time.
You are now ready to print and Cut them.
Open up the Send to Silhouette box and follow instructions
1. Print the image (I use whatever white card i have on hand and what purpose I'm using it for i.e. If colouring in with copics I use X press it Paper, Quill card or Kaisercraft smooth for paint/pencils etc)
2. Place your image on the mat, follow the instructions(you want the machine to detect registration marks automatically) and check your settings before you cut:-
3. Hold your breath that the cutting bit works......I find that sometimes the cameo is temperamental but good light (I use mine only by day as i find sunlight is best) and leaving your cover of the cameo up helps get an accurate cut.
4. Voila! Lots of SWEEEEET stamp goodness ready to colour as you like!
NOW..I can hear many of you thinking, I have all these stamps already and don't need to buy the digi's, I have a silhouette, can i achieve the same thing? YES is the answer you can :) However that will be left for another time soon!
Hope you enjoyed the tutorial, and have fun playing and creating! I am off now to create some cards with my images!
Kerry
