Master Bedroom Vinyl–with tips

You may remember my post from January sharing a couple of vinyl layout ideas I wanted to try. I asked Kevin which one he preferred and of course he choose the simplest of the options:

Fonts: HOME- Algerian; The rest- Worstveld Sling Oblique

My taste is a little fancier but I wouldn’t have given him this option if I didn’t like it so that’s the layout I went with.

I wanted the “HOME” part to be as big as possible so adjusted my page size all the way up to 9 x 24 inches, which is the size of the $1.59 vinyl sheet from Expressions Vinyl. I sized the HOME up proportionally until it filled most of the red outlined box, which shows the cuttable area. I left about a half inch margin on the sides just to be safe. I started with the rest of the words in the same document so I could enlarge them too and see how they would look next to the HOME. Then, since I wanted a two-toned effect, I made two different Silhouette Studio documents, one for the word HOME, to be cut out in light brown; and one for the rest of the words, to be cut out in regular brown.
 



The Worstveld Sling Oblique font doesn’t allow you to make it bold but I wanted to make the letters thicker to make them easier to work with. So I added an offset. An offset traces a new cutline around any image. Then you can move it closer or farther away. I set my distance to .06. Then I deleted the actual text and it left behind the new cutline.



On to the cutting itself. I learned a few weeks ago that the default settings for speed and thickness are usually too high. You know they’re too high if the machine cuts all the way through the backing of your vinyl. If it does that, the pieces can start to pop out while the machine is still cutting and the popped up pieces can catch on the rollers and twist the vinyl all around, which obviously wrecks your project. So under the Cut Settings I selected the Silhouette Vinyl option but then lowered the thickness to 8 and the speed to 6.



I still haven’t figured out how to make the transfer paper work the way it’s supposed to so I just pealed the letters off the backing and stuck them to the wall by hand.



The Algerian font was pretty tricky to handle with all the fancy outlines. They kept trying to stick to each other and get in my way. But I figured that would be the case and waited to start this project until Jacob was asleep and I was feeling particularly patient.



Once again, I just eyeballed this project as I put it on the wall but I bet making a line with some painter’s tape would help a lot if you want to be sure everything is straight and even. The nice thing I’ve found about this vinyl (at least on this particular paint) is that I can peal it up and move it fairly easily. So if something starts to bug me because it’s uneven or whatever, I can take a second and fix it.

Anyone who likes my layout or text idea, feel free to use it yourself as I don’t claim to own the phrase “I get to come home to you” or any other part of it. I definitely would love a shout-out or comment if you do like it though, just cuz it’s nice to hear from people. Heck, if you have a Silhouette I'll even email you the files, if you'll become a follower of this blog and post about it on yours if you have one.

Segway to personal note: Beware, mild mushiness to follow.
I now wish to acknowledge my awesomely wonderful tech-savvy husband. Any of you who actually have a Silhouette may be wondering why mine has a blue USB cable. Well, this is because yesterday when my mother-in-law came over for me to show her how to do wall vinyl, I realized with much embarrassment and “grrr-rawr” frustration that my Silhouette USB cable was no where to be found. I blame myself because I didn’t put it away in the box with everything else the last time I used it and I’m pretty sure my two-year-old claimed it as his own at some point over the past week. Absolutely distraught, because I figured it must be some special kind of cord that only Silhouette makes, I conveyed my despair to my husband over Google chat while he was still at work. He offered his sympathy and promised to help me look for it later. Then, the minute he got home, he marched upstairs and in his awesome techie know how, examined my machine and discovered that the cord I was missing was in fact a regular printer cable, of which we own several. So after hunting in the closet for a minute or two he came back downstairs and announced that I could use my Silhouette again. My hero! It may seem small, but this is the kind of thing he does that reminds me how lucky I am on a regular basis. I love you sweetie!