Hi all,

today I have a 3-in-1 post for you: I want to show you how to dress up home-made gifts with the help of your Silhouette Cameo – plus a little tutorial on how to create a scalloped circle with Silhouette Studio thrown into the mix. And I will reveal my recipe for homemade Vanilla Sirup. Oh, and a little freebie is in the mix, as well. 😀

Materials needed:

Scrapbooking papers in coordinated colors and patterns.

About 4 in of ribbon

Jar or bottle filled with something delicious – for Valentine’s day you could fill it with pink or red candy or with something homemade, maybe a cookie or cake mix, homemade jam, vinegar… or do it like me and cook up a batch of homemade vanilla sirup.

I love to make my own vanilla sirup – it is soooo yummy to use in coffee or tea or hot milk and knowing it’s only made from vanilla beans, sugar and water makes it even better, lol. Here’s how I do it (in case you might want to try it yourself):

Take two vanilla beans and slit them lengthwise. Add 2 cups of water, 2 cups of (white) sugar and the vanilla beans to a pot and bring to a boil. Stir well until the sugar is dissolved. Let this mixture simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Take out the large bean pieces and fill in clean jars or bottles. This will yield about 3 cups of sirup.

 

Pick a jar or bottle you want to “seal” and measure the diameter of the lid – in my case that’s 1.5 in.

Open Silhouette Studio, select the Ellipse tool and draw a circle with the size you need.(hold the shift key while drawing to make sure it’s a circle not an ellipse). If you have trouble getting it the exact size, just make it any size and switch to the scale window. Enter the desired size and don’t forget to hit “apply” when you’re done. 

 

 

Now I’ll show you how I create a scalloped circle in Silhouette Studio:Draw an ellipse with the size of 0.5 x 2 in (use the size window to get it exact). Select the ellipse and rotate it 5 times using the replicate window.

Select all these ellipses and weld them together using the modify window:

 

For my purposes I want the scallops smaller, so I will duplicate this shape (copy and paste or STRG + c and STRG + v), pick one and rotate it 15° (using the rotate window)

 

Align the two shapes vertically and horizontally

Then weld them together (see above) and resize to your liking/to fit your project.

 

If you’re using a square or rectangular shape instead of a circle – here’s a tutorial on how to scallop those.

 

In the next screenshot you can see that I layered the pieces I want to use, so I can adjust the sizing.

 

If you would like to include a heart shape into your design, as well, here’s a link to download a heart freebie. (click image to download)

 

For Silhouette Studio open the.dxf and copy and paste it into your project (or just drag it from the file explorer window).

 

To cut the pieces, move the pieces on and off the cutting board, according to which paper you’re feeding into your Silhouette, and cut.

 

Then assemble the sticker for the lid and the one for the side of the jar/bottle. Attach a piece of ribbon first, then layer the stickers on top. There you go, labeled, dressed up and “sealed”… all ready for Valentine’s Day! 😀

Have fun,