A Beginner's Guide to Print & Cut with the Silhouette - focus on stickers

Over on the Silhouette UK Blog I have a Print & Cut project for the Silhouette using a sticker design from the Silhouette Design Store. It includes step-by-step instructions for manipulating the store bought design to get maximum value from these purchased studio sticker files. The instructions include: how to set up a Print & Cut sticker page, adding a trim line around sticker sets, re-sizing sets, and cutting sticker planner pages.

I have a second post with further ideas for getting more from sticker files from the Silhouette Design Store. These include mirroring the images, splitting the set of images, isolating individual images, and making co-ordinating functional stickers.

Here I have reproduced the general Print & Cut section as I'm sure you'll find it useful if you are new to Print & Cut, or if you haven't used the Silhouette Sticker Paper before.

This is the design I used. I think these birds are so pretty. The stickers can be used on SO many crafting projects.

Little Bird Stickers by Carina Gardner (#284076) 

Here are my Print & Cut Instructions - just four easy steps.

(a) Page Setup for Print & Cut

In the Page Setup panel, change the Page Size to match the sticker paper (Silhouette Printable Sticker Paper is U.S. Letter sized).  Also tick the Show Print Border and Show Cut Border boxes.

From the Registration Marks tab, select Type 1 in the Style dropdown box, I like to also increase the Thickness to .60 to make the marks easier for the sensor to detect. If you were to look at the virtual mat, you'd see that the registration marks are joined by the cut (red) line. Any item outside of this red box will not cut.

(b) Print Page Setup

In the Main Menu (top of the page), change the Print Page Setup to match the Page Setup (i.e. Letter size). If there is a borderless option for Letter size DO NOT select it. Leave the scale at one hundred percent.

The print (grey) line will now be visible within the page borders and outside the cut line. Any part of an item outside the grey box will not print. Where possible avoid overlapping the hashed area (dark printing in this area can cause the sensor to mis-read the design).

(c) Print the Design

Once your have placed your sticker design in the correct position, print the design on your printer (from the Main/Top menu chose File > Print). For most printers select 'Best' or 'Photo Quality' for the best result. You may notice that any line with the thickness set to zero will not be printed.

(d) Cut the Design

Press the printed sheet onto the cutting mat, aligning it with the top left-hand corner of the sticky area. Load it into your Silhouette and open up the Send tab. Select the cut setting for "Sticker Paper, White". Adjust the force to achieve a "kiss cut" (cutting through the sticker layer, but not the paper backing). I usually reduce the force to '12' and recommend you use a Test Cut to find your ideal setting. Highlight the Cut option and check that the correct lines on the design will be cut. If they are correct, Send the design to cut. The Silhouette will attempt to read the registration marks and then cut the design.

I hope you find this useful.