How to knockout a Vinyl design for Rhinestones

Hello, its been all about the gorgeous Silhouette Rhinestones on the Silhouette UK Blog this week and I've shared a decorative pillow/cushion using rhinestones and flock heat transfer featuring the Eiffel Tower and a custom rhinestone phrase - Ooh La la! Pop over to read that post if you'd like to find out how to design your own rhinestone decal. I used the Eiffel Tower file (#41675) by Samantha Walker and Madilyn Sketch font (#77519) by Rivka Wilkins, both from the Silhouette Design Store.

In this post I'm concentrating on the heat transfer part, and particularly how to 'knockout' the rhinestone design from the flock heat transfer layer to allow the rhinestones to adhere directly to the cover's fabric rather than the flock. This is important because although the stones might initially stick if applied on top of the flock, over time they will likely loosen and drop off.

With regular shapes I use the offset feature in the Silhouette Designer software to make a slightly larger version of the design and then cut the design and the larger holes. However, there is a quicker way with the Designer Edition of the Silhouette software. 

This is how:

• Copy the rhinestone design, then Paste in Front (right mouse click actions)
• Release the Rhinestones (from the Rhinestone Panel)
• With the new copy still selected, increase the size of the rhinestones to the next size up
• Move the original rhinestone holes away and use to cut the rhinestone template & make the decal
• Delete any of the new holes which fall to either size of the design
• Cut the new rhinestone holes along with the background design.
• Weed the design and the holes.

The vinyl design is applied to the item first and the slightly larger holes are then in perfect alignment with the rhinestone transfer with a small gap around them so the rhinestones can adhere directly to the item without being deflected by the edges of the vinyl design.

The result is very neat and the larger holes are barely visible.

I hope that you find this technique useful for your rhinestone text decals.