Silhouette Tutorial - Welding the Valentine Lion

The Valentine Lion from Sanqunetti Design is one of my favourite cards of 2015 (have I said that before? lol).  The design is provided in a variety of formats and in flexible way so that, with small adaptations, they can be used for multiple cutting media (fabric, card, vinyl, HTV etc). 

If you use the Silhouette Studio software it takes a little bit of design savvy to make the SVG file easier to use to cut out with paper/card.  N.B. You DO need to have the Designer, Designer Plus or Business edition to work with SVG files without using additional vector software.

I've included a few screen shots here using the Silhouette Studio software to show you how to make it easier to cut and layer your pieces by using the WELD function. 

Here are the 3 main head pieces (you should leave them in their original positions from the ValentineLion_SVG_whole file), of which the red and pink manes are each 14 pieces grouped together.

Firstly ungroup the lion until you are able to move away the extra bits. Arrange the head pieces so that the head is at the the front.  OBJECT > Arrange > Send to Front. 

Selecting one of the head pieces, hold down shift and select the pink mane too. 

Then, MODIFY > weld. 

Both pieces should turn pink.

Send them to the back,  OBJECT > Arrange > Send to Back.

Do the same with the red mane.
Select one head piece, hold down shift and select the red mane, then MODIFY > Weld. Both pieces should turn red.

Send them to the back,  OBJECT > Arrange > Send to Back.

You should now have just 3 pieces instead of 29 which will match perfectly when cut out and layered over each other!

You'll perhaps want to weld another copy of the head to the body and maybe the body to the tail and so one. I leave it up to you!

Have fun welding!