I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged about this yet, but I purchased a Silhouette Cameo. I LOVE it!! It has been on my wishlist for a long time, but with my sister’s wedding coming up on July 4, we needed one for some wedding DIY. If you have been a reader for very long, you may have seen some of my SVG files that I have shared in the past(Hulk, penguin, paper baby shoes, cake favor boxes). I used to have a laser engraving machine that utilized SVG files and I was happy to share my designs.

When I got my Silhouette Cameo I learned that if you have the Designer Edition of the software, you can still use SVG files. Yay! The software that comes with the Silhouette lets you do a lot of things, but I highly recommend purchasing the Designer Edition. It give you the freedom to use SVG files you find on the internet, design rhinestone templates,  extra design tools like a creative knife tool and enhanced eraser, plus a  built in ruler and guide system for precision.

Now I want to show you a fun project I made utilizing a SVG file and Silhouette Studio Designer Edition.

My cousin is having a baby and decorating her nursery in ladybugs. The name they picked is Terra. I thought it would be fun to make a personalized night light for the babies room. Walmart sells the perfect nightlights for vinyl. It has a 3″x 3″ square surface. They sell them in different colors too. For this project, I went with the clear.

I will walk you through the steps of how to make one of these yourself using the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition software.

1. Find an image that you like in a SVG format. I googled Ladybug SVG and immediately found a cute option. 
2. Open up the SVG file in Silhouette Studio Designer Edition.
3. For this image, I did not have to do very much work before it was ready to cut. The first thing is to right click on your image and select Ungroup. That will break the image into all of its separate parts.
   
4. After that, I decided I wanted the antennae a little thicker. That was easy to achieve by adding an offset. Make sure you have both antennae selected, right click and select Offset. Then over in the slider on the right, you can select how much offset you want. I set my offset distance to 0.050.
   
5. Next, it was a matter of grouping my objects into their different layers for cutting. I had three layers. The head and body were the bottom. Next, came the pink wings. Finally, the spots were the top layer.
   
6. Now you are ready to cut your vinyl. It is always a good idea to take a look at the Cut Style Window.  It is the icon with the scissors. It will show you the cut lines so you can make sure you are cutting exactly what you want. When you are satisfied, you can send it to the Silhouette and cut away. So far I have had a lot of success just leaving the default cut settings as they are. 
7. When it came time to actually layer and install the vinyl, I used Mandy’s tutorial over at Sugar Bee Crafts. She shared a really smart way to apply layered vinyl.

I really love how the nightlight came out. I showed my sister and she begged me to make one for my niece. My niece loves coyotes, so I found a SVG file and went through many of the same steps to create this fun nightlight.

I am continually amazed at all the cool things I can make now using my Silhouette Cameo and the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition. I bought both of these myself, and I have never regretted it for a moment.

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Silhouette affiliate program. I purchased both my Silhoutte Cameo and the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition on my own. All opinions, and projects are my own.

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