Happy Friday!

Back in October I made this Hello Fall sign.

I knew from the beginning I wanted to do have something Christmas related on the back. I made reindeer shirts for my boys this season and I thought it would make for a cute sign too!  My board had already been stained using the Rustoleum Dark Walnut stain. I found the board at Lowe’s it’s a poplar hobby board that measures 6 inches by 24 inches.

Silhouette Studio Time

So I sat down and designed it all out in the Silhouette Studio. I am using this deer head shape from the Silhouette Store (50% off BTW ’till December 8th!).  I’m not entirely happy how this project turned out but it was a bit of a fail on my part. I have learned and will do things a bit differently next time around! I thought you could still learn from my mistakes!

Let’s get started…

I wanted all of my deer heads aligned so I choose from the top menu Object >> Align >> Align Top.  Then I choose Object >> Align >> Align Horizontally.  See my pictures below for reference. 

In the Silhouette Studio, I like to get a visual of the measurements of my board and the placement of my design. So I put in the dimensions of my board in the Page Settings menu. I change it back to the dimensions of the material I’m using before I send it to the Silhouette.

The font I used for the sign is called Harman Script.  When using a script font, be sure to weld it together before cutting. This connects all the letters together evenly.  See the picture below? My letters are not flowing together and would be cut off if I did not weld.  To do this go to Modify >> Weld

I wanted to make a couple of these signs so I decided Stencil Material was the way to go.  If you are wanting to reuse your stencil this is a perfect material to use. It’s a thick heavy plastic that you can re-use again and again.  I thought ‘perfect this is what I needed to use’. So I loaded my stencil material into my Silhouette and sent my design to the machine.

Mistake # 1 

I have only used Stencil Material only once when making a shirt. I didn’t use letters just a shape and I forgot to add bridges to my letters. What are bridges? They are a connecting line so when you are creating your stencil those little shapes inside the letters won’t fall out. Take a look at my “W” below. To create the connecting line is very simple if you have the designer edition.  Just choose your Knife Tool >> STRAIGHT >> Then click SOLID at the bottom.  Then simply slice where you want your connecting lines to go. This will keep those pieces together to form your letters. I forgot to do this.

My work around was to place each one back on by hand. Yay. Not really 😉

See all those E’s, Y’s, O’s…all those middle pieces had to placed by me. If only I made bridges!!

Then, I ran into….

Mistake #2

My Silhouette decided to not cut my last deer. 🙁 Well, since I used Stencil Material I was able to reuse the first deer in it’s place at the end of my project. Once my sign was dry.

Not to let that get me down, I powered on.

I used Martha Stewart Acrylic Paint in Wedding Cake for the white and the Martha Stewart Golden Pearl for the letters. I sprinkled on a little Martha Stewart Glitter in Smoky Quartz to give it a little shine.  Just dab the paint on lightly and slowly.

This has been my first time working with stencil material for a wooden sign. I have used it before on T-shirts and it worked beautifully.  I had a lot of issues with it sticking to my board when I started to paint. The antler’s of the deer and the letters of the stencil kept trying to bounce up no matter how hard I pressed down. I found the material not very adhesive on my wooden sign. My paint seeped through in places and I wasn’t very happy with the overall look. Because of this I will be sticking to using Stencil Vinyl for my signs from now on. I find that vinyl creates a tighter seal when working with wood and paint. I love the idea of the reuse factor of Stencil Material…it’s just didn’t work very well with my project. 🙁

To finish off my sign, I added a little red pom pom for Rudolph’s nose with some hot glue. Despite all my set backs, I think the sign turned out pretty cute. It can pull down dual duty (because the “Hello Fall” sign is on the back). I love that…less storage for me!

The Silhouette Black Friday is still going on until December 8th. This is the best time of the year to snag deals on things like material or even the Designer edition software! I finally just purchased the Designer Edition 🙂 I am a happy crafter! I’m debating on the Silhouette Connect! Anyone use that a lot??  It’s also a great time to purchase a machine if you haven’t done so! Just hop on over to Silhouette to check out the deals! Be sure to use code: TORI at checkout to get your deal!

Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you make a purchase using my code, TORI, I receive a small commission that helps support this blog.  Please rest assured that as always, I only recommend products that I use and love!