Eclipse Card with a drawn Dingbat Font

Hiya, I have a new eclipse card over on the Silhouette UK Blog today using the Silhouette Pen Holder and the Cute Bunny Dingbats Font (#247342) by Carina Gardner.  The dingbat font has lots of cute bunnies (unsurprisingly), and some additional decorative elements. This post addresses the questions that follow, of interest to Silhouette and non-Silhouette users alike.

Which pens can you use with the Silhouette Pen Holder?

The images are drawn onto the card font using my favourite brand of hybrid gel pens, the Pentel Hybrid Gel Grip Metallic Gel Ink Pens - K118.  These fit snugly into the medium sized cuff of the Silhouette Pen Holder and write and draw beautifully without skipping.

In the post I demonstrate the use of some alternative pens, including Sharpie Fine Point markers and Stabilo Fineliners.

The Sharpies with the thicker body like this one only JUST fit in the largest cuff. A better choice are the slimmer Sharpie Ultra Fine Point markers, but these are more difficult to find in non primary colours.

I did find that the point on the end of the Stabilo markers did get a bit bent over. A more durable alternative are the Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Pens - 334 (don't be put off by the triangular barrels - they still fit in the pen holder) as the felt tip is metal clad.

If you click on any of the pen links you'll realise that they take you to the UK-based Tiger Pens online shop. I've included links to them as they have the complete colours ranges of all the pens I've mentioned. I don't have any association with Tiger Pens, except that I usually buy my pens from them as they have a great range (including Copic markers), free delivery, and very prompt service.



Selecting Images from a Dingbat Font

The images from the Dingbat font can be selected from the Glyphs panel in the Designer Edition of the Silhouette Studio software, and the post includes an alternative method for those who only have the basic edition of the software.

I used the Cute Bunny Dingbats Font (#247342) by Carina Gardner, but there are loads of dingbat fonts available from the Silhouette Design Store, and are now available to non-Silhouette users, as they can be downloaded independently of the Silhouette software.

How do you make an Eclipse Card with a Silhouette?

I love using my Silhouette to make cards using the 'Eclipse' technique, where letters are cut from the background and then raised above the background on several cardstock layers. Originally the technique was used with traditional metal alphabet dies, but by using the fonts on your Silhouette there is much more flexibility in terms of font, sizing, style etc.

I describe the technique in detail in my Silhouette post and in the instructions for the Santa Express Box Card.

For these party invite cards the letters were cut from pink cardstock and also from the background panel on which the bunnies had been drawn. The text for the eclipse letters is LW Super Font, although any bold block font that cuts well should work.

I made a couple of variations which include additional text in the Sisters Sketch Font (#76091) by designer, Rivka Wilkins.

I loved using these drawn versions of these bunny images, and I hope you'll try out a dingbat font with your pens. You'll find that the Silhouette Pen Holder gives so much flexibility and variation.