Know we are still wrapped up in Thanksgiving prep, but please mark your calendar for our December 1, 2014 meeting coming up this Monday at Absolutely Everything from 11 to 1 p.m.

Have been looking at Christmas Tree dies and was drawn to one that is just a series of rectangles.  Of course, by using my Silhouette,  I can create the same.  Wow,  how many times have I saved a big chunk of bucks! by using my machine.  Well, I am going to share how I went about making this banded tree with the Silhouette at the meeting.

Also, am playing with my magnet sheets using family photos.  Think these will be a cute stocking stuffer.   Will share this also.

Last meeting we talked about everyone bringing gift ideas using our Silhouettes.  Hope you all will be showing up with some of those.

Check out the photos of the creative projects our group have made.  The ones above are from last month's meeting.  Check out (can you believe it)  Jennifer's Halloween nail designs she made with her Silhouette.  Silhouette has a bunch of these nail files that are fun to use.   Amy (it's hard to see) made a Mickey Mouse image from three circles and used iron on fabric to put on a t-shirt.  Don't you love the decorative post-it note holder and the card envelope you can put those dimensional cards in.  Another item from Jennifer is the halloween card made with glitter paper and a Silhouette file.

Made because of a sad event (one of the hostages beheaded by Isis came from Karen's town) and looking for something comforting, she made these plaques with biblical quotes to help her deal with the sadness.

Those tags came from free files on line at Monica's creative craft room.  What an incredible designer she is and she has a great many files she offers free.  Don't know if you remember the gazebo I made; it came from her site too.  Speaking of sites and great files that are free, check out Bird's cards on the web.  I love her designs and she is very generous to share them.

Hope these inspire!   We love to welcome new members.  It is a sharing and learning experience to expand our abilities using the Silhouette.  Many experience levels and everyone, no matter how long you have been using the machine, keep adding info and learning new things.

Have a great Thanksgiving!!

Cathy

See I wrote "shop" for ship in my opening sentence.  Freudian slip, love to shop!

Returned home Friday from a no-cruise to Bermuda.  Hurricane diverted our shop to Nassau.  Still had a fun time scrapping with friends in our own conference room on board.

Hope to see many of you Monday, November 3rd at AE for our regular meeting.

Last month we checked out some of Silhouette's products.   The interfacing for fabrics to cut on our machines worked pretty well.   So many of there items are really "easy peasy" to use and expand our creative juices.  This time I will bring the new pen holder to show how to use it with a variety of pens.

Also, working on a demo of "text to path" that is on the Silhouette Blog.  If you don't already follow it, check it out.  Their design team come up with some clever uses for our Silhouette.  After checking out Monica's Craft Room, am inspired to share creative gift tags and how to make your own designs.

While I was away, I see they introduced a new Cameo.  Don't have much knowledge of it as of yet, so maybe some of you will and can share what's new with it.

Don't forget to share anything you do with your Silhouette.

Cathy

Home after a nice long vacation!!  and ready to turn on that Silhouette machine and try something new.  Where did this cold weather come from?  It's only September!  It means we will be spending more time indoors unless you are caught up in winterizing your garden.... out to the orchards for the new apples....taking long walks to see the leaf changes or heavens to Betsy, getting ready for ski season.  But that's not a description of me......indoors...hot chocolate...cooking soups....knitting....sewing...books...and any sedentary activity that involves food.

As I look at the Silhouette blog and You Tube videos since I've been gone, I feel they are moving past me with all the new stuff.   Have not set in stone what I will go over at the meeting, but it will be definitely be something new.   I have fabric interfacing, magnet paper, adhesive paper and more in my stash of Silhouette stuff that I haven't worked with.    Also, have a request to come up with some holiday projects.   Who knows what it will be.   And e-mail me if you want me to incorporate something you are interested in.

Can you ladies bring any ideas (you have done recently or past) with holiday themes....past Christmas cards, Thanksgiving ideas, Halloween, etc.  to share.   If you feel up to a challenge with a fabulous prize (and you know how much I invest in those...at least a dollar or two), bring a holiday idea to show.

Also, come with your questions about our new Software or any topic that you ( and probably others) are struggling with.   If we don't have a ready answer, we'll put it on the "need to find out and learn" list.    It doesn't seem there is an end game to mastering this machine and I love it!!

If you haven't been following the Silhouette blog, take a look.  Their projects inspire me or are a jumping off point for doing something new and different.

Well, enough rambling...hope to see many of you at Absolutely Everything as we meet:


Monday, October 6th, 2014, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Cathy

August 4th is a week and a half away and we will once again meet at Absolutely Everything from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m for our Silhouette group meeting.

Planning on continued review of the new software, mainly the tools on the left side and also checking out the preferences.

Show and tell.....bring it along for us to ooooh and aaaaah over.

Want to also lead you to some good free fonts that we can use in a challenge to make subway art.  Also, I have had some fun with finding free dingbats (images replacing letters in font formats).  Clever Someday website has a list of reliable downloads of dingbat sites.  In the same vein,  DaFont has always been a safe and reliable place for fonts and also has dingbats.  Don't forget we can take those dingbat images and turn them into cutting files with the Trace feature.  We'll also talk about this at our meeting.

How about a challenge for those of you attending the meeting (and a chance to win a prize of great value......at least a dollar)!    Theme:    It's a party!   Make anything, banners would be a fun, party favor boxes, invites, table decorations,  wall decorations,  flags, vinyl images on glasses,  etc. etc.  And don't just think of birthdays, holidays are on the way.

Always look forward to our meeting, seems new ideas flow from you ladies and I love it!!

Cathy

Can we tear ourselves away from our gardens and beaches now that summer is really here (although here in New Hampshire it may be temporary)?    The next meeting of our Silhouette Designers Group at Absolutely Everything is July 7, 2014 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

We'll continue to review the Silhouette Software Update....review the survey results and decide what topics we'll schedule for the coming months.....show and tell our challenge results (specifics of challenge following)...and share as we always do any tips on Silhouette use or resources.

Since the group said it would like to try a challenge....here it is:

Using the theme "SUMMER SUN",  create any type of item you like (tags, bookmarks, cards, pennants, cupcake holders, layouts....etc. etc.) using your Silhouette incorporating the theme.  Now,  think outside the box and surprise us.  Think what first comes to mind when you read those words.  For me, it was colors...oranges, yellows, reds....warmth, brightness.  It can cover millions of things....food, trips, mosquitos, skimpy bathing suits, family, bugs, water, frogs, barbeques and on and on.

I also have some Silhouette sticker paper I am playing with and hope we have time to look at that.

Here is a picture of some of the items we shared last month.  We are good!!!!