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How to cut fragile paper with your Silhouette Cameo

How to cut fragile paper on your Silhouette Cameo : Just Vintage Home

Do you have the problem I had with cutting fragile paper like old dictionary pages on your Silhouette Cameo? I wanted paper strips. Fillers. Like this:

Dictionary paper filler strips : Just Vintage Home

I kept getting a mess. The paper stuck to the mat and tore. An internet search didn’t help much at all. The suggestion I saw most was to use a mat that had lost most of its sticky. So I used a mat that wouldn’t hold card stock in place.

Note: I show all the trials and errors first. To quickly see the solution, scroll past all the small pictures.

How to cut fragile paper on your Silhouette Cameo : Just Vintage Home

Ever seen that before? I bet you have. (Oops. Didn’t mean to show any of the mess under the desk. Blushing.)

But even that was too sticky for this fragile paper. I don’t fully understand the relationship, but it even caused the knife to drag and pull. Not clean cuts at all.

How to cut fragile paper on your Silhouette Cameo : Just Vintage Home

Which, actually is kind of OK for what I was doing but, well, not really. And what happens when you try to get the strips off the mat?

How to cut fragile paper on your Silhouette Cameo : Just Vintage Home

Pulling it off like normal? Ugh. No. Maybe the spatula will help:

How to cut fragile paper on your Silhouette Cameo : Just Vintage Home

Not a bit. Ooo! I’ve read to bend your mat and sort of peel the mat off your paper with the spatula! Let’s try that!

How to cut fragile paper on your Silhouette Cameo : Just Vintage Home

So far so good…….

How to cut fragile paper on your Silhouette Cameo : Just Vintage Home

Arghhhh! The paper is still too fragile! Oh, I know! Maybe the scraper?

How to cut fragile paper on your Silhouette Cameo : Just Vintage Home

Okay, okay. Bad idea. So what to do?

Here is what you’re here for. The method that worked for me. It’s so simple! What will you need?

Krylon Easy Tack

  1. Give the sheet of card stock one, maybe two, very, very, VERY quick sprays of Easy Tack. We’re talking about less than a second to cover the sheet. Spray it once and if it feels like the fragile paper will stick to it stop there. If not, give it another very quick spray.
  2. Put the paper on the card stock. Go ahead and line up the paper to the card stock edges. If the paper is smaller, line it up with the top and left side. Or wherever your image will be cut. Is that clear as mud? Yeah. Thought so. Um… treat the card stock and paper as the one single piece that will be cut.
  3. Place the card stock on the mat. Fragile paper side up, of course.
  4. Adjust the cut settings. I use settings of — Print paper — Speed 4 — Thickness 2. I think the thickness is the most important thing here. You might have success with a thickness setting of 1. You just don’t want to go much, if any, higher so it won’t cut into your card stock.
  5. Cut.

Hopefully it’ll come out looking like this:

How to cut fragile paper on your Silhouette Cameo : Just Vintage Home

Yes, that has been cut into strips AND using the same blade as before!

How to cut fragile paper on your Silhouette Cameo : Just Vintage Home

What a difference, huh? It peels right off. No scraping, no tearing.

Hope this helps some of you who are struggling with the same problem. I haven’t tried this on anything other than the dictionary pages here, but the same technique should work on paper with similar rag content. I’d love to hear if it works on Bible pages, tissue paper, etc. Let me know!

 

 

 

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Dollar Tree Buckets to Chic Decor

Dollar Tree Buckets To Chic Decor : Just Vintage Home

Chic decor? Am I stretching it? Maybe a little…. or maybe not? When I found these little, brightly colored buckets at the Dollar Tree, bells and whistles went off in my brain. A light bulb came on over my head. I had an idea I thunk up all by myself! Sort of. OK. Not really. I’ve seen many other tins and pottery done this way, but to my knowledge haven’t seen these – these particular buckets from the Dollar Tree. So I can almost say it’s my original idea. Right? Yeah. I know. That’s stretching things. I’m a such a copycat.

Dollar Tree Buckets

Let’s paint ’em white and put Vinyl numbers on ’em!

Dollar Tree Buckets To Chic Decor : Just Vintage Home

I sprayed them with white Rust-Oleum Protective Enamel

Next, I cut out some vinyl numbers with my Silhouette Cameo die cutting machine and stuck the numbers on the buckets. That’s it. Yer done. Of course you could stencil the numbers on or do an image transfer and if I do more, I’ll probably try those techniques, too. But I’m always looking for ways to use my Cameo. I’ve had it going on a year now and still can’t get over the coolness of it. If you don’t have one yet, maybe it’s time to buy one! Amazon usually has some pretty good prices.

Dollar Tree Buckets to Chic Decor : Just Vintage Home


 

Got a Silhouette die cutting machine you don’t know what to do with? Craftsy offers a class called Silhouette Savvy for $29.99, but they often put classes on sale.

Craftsy Silhouette Class

Follow Wanda @ Just Vintage’s board Is there time for all these crafts? on Pinterest.