Light Up Santa Pants Box from Simply Crafty SVGs

Hiya, This week I've had such fun playing with the Santa Pants Box SVG File by Simply Crafty SVGs. I enjoyed it so much that I made two versions: a regular Santa one, and an Elvis version.

At first glance there seem to be a lot of pieces, but most of them fit together in the same way, and the designer, Sandy, has made a fabulous video that guides you through every step. I made both using my Silhouette Cameo and the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition software, but any changes I made could be replicated in other cutting software and with other machines.

For the Santa version I made very few changes, but I've shown the ones that I did make below, in case you'd like to do the same.


Materials Used:
Red and Black Medium-weight Bazzill Cardstock
Red Glitter Paper from UK supplier, Syntego)
Black Sign Vinyl
Gold Mirror Card
White Glitter Fabric
Beacon 3 in 1 Craft Adhesive
Tonic Studios Nuvo Crystal Glaze
String of White LED Lights
Bradawl/Pokey Tool/Hole Punch
Silhouette Cameo


Files Used:
Simply Crafty SVGs Santa Pants Box SVG File


Scaling Up the SVG File
I made the whole box a little larger. To do this I opened one of the files in the software, and then used Merge to bring in each of the other files. I then placed the biggest on the mat, selected all the files, and increased the size proportionally until the chosen one filled the 12"x12" cutting mat entirely (holding down the shift key when dragging one of the corner handles). This increased the size of the finished box (with braces/suspenders) from 8.25" to 9", and it made it somewhat easier to install the LEDs (needing more candies to fill it though)!


Sketching rather than Cutting the Numbers
To aid assembly Sandy has numbered all the leg pieces in the order in which they should be attached. I'm an impatient crafter so I changed the line colour of the numbers and, using Cut by Line Colour, I drew the numbers on with a sketch pen. I used a speed of 10 to do this, so it was sketched almost as fast as I could have drawn them.

Base Alignment
Once all the leg pieces were attached I found it helpful, when adhering the base piece, to use a second, slightly smaller piece under the flaps to hold a more regular shape (made using the Internal Offset function). My glue has a good amount of wiggle time, so I added glue to both base pieces (to stick to the top and the bottom of the tags), and wiggled it around until I had a good alignment.

Here are the pants before any panels are attached, and with the base pieces in place.

Glitter Panels
I cut the pants panels from red glitter paper. I chose paper over a thicker card, as it moulds more easily to the shaped base and consequently is easier to adhere. The glitter is encapsulated into the paper surface, which means there is minimal shedding (and mess), and the panels adhere more easily. Additionally, it is better for your blade and cutting mat then regular glitter cardstock.


Buttons
Real buttons would be great to use on the box, but I didn't have any black ones in the correct size. I cut extra button pieces so that each button was made from four pieces stacked and adhered together. I finished off with a coating of glaze to make them shiny. In this pic the glaze is still wet and looks a bit cloudy, they did dry to be beautifully shiny though.

Making the Belt Shiny
Once I had my buttons ready, I thought that the belt should really be shiny too. In this picture the bottom belt piece is cut from card, and in the upper one I've covered the card with a layer of adhesive sign vinyl. I think I like it much better.

Golden Buckle
The belt buckle was cut from gold mirror card. I found a scrap from some packaging that was perfect excepting it was a little thin. To counter this I cut a second buckle from spare card and adhered the two together.


Adding Glittery Cuffs
I first cut the cuff pieces from card, and then used them as pattern pieces to cut the white glitter fabric. It is really thick, too thick and irregular to cut on my Silhouette, but cut easily with scissors. Other materials that would be great for the cuffs are faux fur, or simple glittered cardstock. However, I had this fabric in my stash, so thought I'd make use of it.

Adding Lights
I made holes for the bulbs for a short string of battery-operated LED lights around the fabric pieces for the base of the trouser legs.  After adhering them with Fabric adhesive, I made matching holes in the assembled pants using a pokey tool, and then a knitting needle.

The lights were pushed  through from the inside of the pants legs, so they partially protruded through the holes (this works fine, as long as the holes are tight, fractionally smaller than the lights).

Oh, and here's Elvis version. I hummed 'Suspicious Minds' the entire time I was assembling this one!

Here is a link to the Elvis buckle (a freebie cutting file in SVG format).

I hope you find these as much fun as I did. Do subscribe if you'd like to regularly read my hints and tips for Simply Crafty SVGS and others files. I also have tutorials and inspiration posts, and occasionally have a FREEBIE file too.

Decorated Christmas Crackers with Silhouette Glitter Sticker Sheets

Hiya, today I have a post on the Silhouette UK Blog on the NEW Silhouette® Glitter Sticker Sheets.  It includes a festive project using glitter stickers to decorate some home-made Christmas crackers. I used the Oh Deer heads by Lettering Delights from the Silhouette Store. They are also available as a bundle from Lettering Delights.

The Glitter sticker sheets are new to the UK. There are 8 sheets in a pack, each sheet being 8.5in. x 11in., or 215 mm x 280 mm. The sheets are glittery with a slightly silvery colouration.  They can be printed with any pattern on a home printer. The sheets are adhesive-backed, so no additional adhesive is needed.

My post over on the Silhouette UK blog covers the cut settings for the Silhouette Cameo 3.  I didn't have immediate success with them so I've included lots of tips on using this media specifically.  These tips are useful for using Print & Cut media generally, especially useful for those who haven't let got to grips with this extremely useful function of the Silhouette family of machines.

There are also brief instructions on how to use the Oh Deer heads to make wrappers to decorate homemade Christmas crackers. They could be used for many other projects too; toppers, picks and even napkin holders.

No-Mess Ways to add Glitter - using the Polar Bear Girl by Sanqunetti Design

Do you love using glitter, but hate the mess it leaves behind? Adding regular glitter with wet adhesive can really add wow factor to cards but tends leave a glittery trail behind.  I made this sparkling card with a new SVG release from Sanqunetti Design - the Polar Bear Girl SVG using two no-mess glitter techniques.


 Supplies Used

I used all the above which including patterned papers are from Kaisercraft's Bubblegum Hills, 6 1/2" Paper Pad (recently retired).  For the glittery parts I used regular superfine glitter and also Silhouette's  Glitter Heat Transfer material.


Card Technique

I made a shaped card base in the Silhouette Studio software using an offset of the bear sitting on a present.  The present is simply a rectangle draw in the software, and the ribbons are just thinner rectangles.  I used a 2 mm offset of the two pieces, then made a mirrored copy to the left, overlapped the two, and then welded them together. The small extra shapes generated were then deleted to give just the outline.  I added a few simple tag shapes, trying out a couple of different colours of sketch pens. This is what I cut out from the white frost glimmer card.

It was then simply a matter of cutting the other pieces out of card and paper. I didn't cut the bear feet separately but made a combined grey base welding all the shapes together, and borrowing the right leg cut line from the feet, adding it to the white bear body.  More about the bear body later.

Now, here is my first non-mess glitter method.


METHOD 1. Apply Glitter with Double-Sided Adhesive


Cut the parcel from regular patterned paper (no fancy finish) and apply a matching piece of double-sides adhesive sheet over the top.  Expose the sticky surface of the sheet and sprinkle it with clear super-fine crystal glitter.

Knock off the excess glitter and burnish the newly glittered surface with a paper folder. Use one of the scrap protective layers from the adhesive sheet to cover the glittered surface while rubbing to protect the paper folder and rub firmly to ensure the glitter is firmly adhered to the paper.

After burnishing in this way you'll have a hard time shifting any of the glitter!

METHOD 2: Using Glitter Heat Transfer Material on Card


To make the he glittery bear, I cut the main bear body from white glitter heat transfer material. The material is cut with the shiny side to the mat, and the design should be flipped horizontally before cutting so that the bear is oriented correctly.

This is the design piece that I cut. Do see where the I placed the right leg piece borrowed from the foot?

I used a heat press to activate the adhesive on the heat transfer material, but an iron would work too. Use a lower temperature than you would normally use to attach heat transfer to fabric to avoid distorting the supporting card.  Apply for just a few seconds and then check if it has adhered. Peel off the backing sheet and press for another second or so and the glitter is permanently stuck.

I hope you'll try these methods out; they both give a really neat professional look - so much easier and cleaner than using liquid glue.

The cute Girl Polar Bear SVG file is available now from the Sangunetti Design website and also from the Etsy store.

This card has been entered in the following challenges:
ABC Christmas Challenge - 'W' for White
Craft Rocket Challenges - Christmas Is Coming
Simon Says Stamp - Christmas Gift Tag
Crafty Cats Challenge - ATG Beartastic challenge #391

If you like polar bears - here are a Polar Bear shaker card  and  Polar Bear personalised gift boxes that I made from the Sangunetti Design Christmas Polar Bear SVG.

Glitter Unicorn Card

Sometimes I feel simple is best in card making. This simple card design relies on glimmer, shine and glitter and really shows off this adorable unicorn SVG file.  I made this magical card using this week's new SVG release from Sanqunetti Design - Unicorn SVG.

The only additions I made to the unicorn design are the child's name and the cloud/rainbow element from this Rainbow Sloth card.

Supplies Used

Silhouette Cameo® and Colour Printer
6" circular card blank (cut on Silhouette Cameo®)
Off-White Pearl/Glimmer Paper (printable)
White heavy-weight Cardstock
Silver Glitter Paper (for the rainbow)
Double-sided Adhesive Paper (apply over mane, tail & star)
Semi-opaque Glitter (applied to the adhesive paper)
Black Vinyl (unicorn's features)
Silver Brushed-metal Vinyl (for name and horn stripes)
Grey Marker (or scrap of grey paper for the horn)
Card adhesive
Dimensional adhesive pads

I cut the majority of the unicorn pieces using the Silhouette's Print and Cut facility and then paper-pieced it, added the glitter (on machine cut pieces of double-sided adhesive), and then vinyl, and finally popped it up on dimensional adhesive pads.

The Unicorn cutting file is available from the Sanqunetti Design website and at Judy's Etsy store.


I made several versions of the card, but I really like this one, the simplest, best of all.