Owl Card and Perfect Letter Placement

Today I'm sharing a teacher card I made with the latest SVG release from Sanqunetti Design. The set of SVGs consists of four adorable owls suitable for card making, and other purposes, for a variety of different occasions. I thought that this owl with the pencil would make a great teacher thank you card.

A few folks have asked me how I get my lettering to be so straight. Well, my BIG secret is that I CHEAT!  Yes, all the letters are cut, as opposed to printed, but they are cut from the white rather than the black card. So, here "Best Teacher" is cut from the white card (good quality and super-smooth) and the apparent black lettering comes from the black card behind. This means that the spacing is 'as on screen' and only the inner pieces of a few letters need placing (here B, A and R).

To make this card in the Silhouette Studio software I used the rounded rectangle tool to make a box for the lettering, typed the lettering and then made an offset (the cut line for the black rounded rectangle). As I wanted the letters to be cut from the white part, I made the smaller white rectangle and the lettering into a compound path.  Now the letters show black from the rectangle behind.  

It can be tricky to accurately place the small, inner parts of the letters. However, I have a solution! Keep and use the waste letters (for B, A, R), and after you've stuck the white and black pieces together replace them in their holes in the white card. They act as a guide to position the pieces. And not only that ... they also act as a mask for adding adhesive (the white dot in the A is a tiny, but sufficient amount of strong adhesive) so you don't get glue where you don't want it. You just need to remove the unwanted letters later. Hint: Take them out quite soon, as if your glue seeps, you'll stick the unwanted letters permanently!

I made the shaped card by first making a topper by creating an offset around the owl and the lettering box, and then making a card blank from two copies of topper shape, overlapped and welded together.

I hope that you like this card and I'm sure you'll find plenty of occasions to use these useful images. I'm already planning another project using that cute little guy with the camera.

The SVG files are available at Sanqunetti Design and Judy's Etsy Store right now.

ADDENDUM:  After posting the pictures I noticed that I'd omitted the pencil lead. And yes, we did laugh that the little guy had no lead in his pencil!