Scrapbooking/computer nerd post.. beware..

So, I’ve been contemplating purchasing a digital craft cutter for quite some time.  Last year when Belinda and I were first getting hard core into the scrappyness (I think we had just discovered that BasicGrey is awesome), we were talking about how it’s a pain to either buy premade embellishments (hello expensive), use a die cutting machine for which you have to buy dies (hello again, $$), or cut out all your embellishments by hand (ok, time is money in this one).  I thought I was being so clever and said something like, “There should be a machine that cuts stuff out for you, like a printer with a blade!”

While I thought I was exploring a realm of uninhabited intellectual property, I sigh, learned that such a thing already existed.  Good for my sanity, bad for my patent portfolio (or lackthereof).  The first one I encountered was the Cricut, which is very popular in the scrapbooking community.  Well, that one kind of had the same limitations as a regular die cutting machine has.  You have to buy cartridges that contain designs on them to cut out.  Tres limiting! Plus who wants to buy an $80 cartridge every time you want some new designs?  No thanks.

So, I continued my investigation then I discovered what I actually was thinking of – the Silhouette.  I was liking what I was reading – you hook it to your computer and it can cut any TrueType font that you download on the web.  That in itself is enough for any scrapbooker that has tried letter stickers and found themselves with a pile of Qs and Xs at the end of a hard core cropping session.  Some more research and I found that people are pretty open about sharing files they’ve made for different shapes/themes, and you can buy shapes from places like Quickutz for much cheaper than a Cricut cartridge.

There are actually 3 machines that are the exact same thing – Craft Robo, Wish Blade, and the Silhouette.  I chose the Silhouette because it was over $100 cheaper than the other two.  For the same exact machine, except the Wish Blade comes with slightly different software and a snazzier case.  The price had dipped pretty low on Overstock and Oak decided I would finally get one for Christmas.  Huzzah! (yes, we have already exchanged gifts.  We are bad about that.)

Well, my new toy actually arrived in the mail the same exact day I had that terrible fall at work.  Talk about bad timing!  But my honey actually helped me get it all set up and within a half an hour or so we had cut out our first items  – a heart and our names.  Pretty amazing! I think this is a craft tool that guys could get into.  It’s geeky enough to intrigue them, and if you get the Silhouette, it’s not at all girly looking.

So, using the premade shapes and the letters is pretty darn easy!  And, since I’m sure you know how many fonts there are out there, the possibilities are pretty much endless.  Not to mention the fact that I’ve already downloaded a buttload of premade images – I even found a Scottish piper for our Highland games page.  I’m sure when I get into Super Scrapbooking Mode, I’ll be using all of these shapes like no tomorrow.

However, since it’s the holiday season, I haven’t really been scrapbooking too much, so I decided, me being the nerd that I am, that I also need to learn how to make my own designs with this thing.  There are a ton of tutorials online that help with learning different methods (see my delicious category for a bunch of links).  I downloaded a program that is basically the freeware version of Adobe Illustrator, called Inkscape, which is where you make your designs, and then you import them into the CraftRobo software that comes with the Silhouette. Conceptually it is not very hard.  However, I have a fair amount of experience working with vector graphics from college so I’m pretty sure that has helped.

I’m still working on my first design- it’s all done in Inkscape, but for some reason it didn’t cut correctly.  And, let me just tell you, that the CraftRobo documentation is notsogood.  Sorry to whoever wrote it, but it breaks pretty much every technical writing rule there is.  It’s very componentized – no, I do not want to learn about the print window, I want to learn <i>how to print</i>.  It’s pretty clear that Quickutz took the software and slapped their logo on it – and they didn’t really even do that in most places!  Talk about interesting branding and vendor issues (oh, I am such a nerd.).  So, I’m pretty sure I won’t be using the CraftRobo documentation as a reference very often and will instead print the tons of tutorials that people online have written up.

I have to say, for an open source project, I am pretty impressed with Inkscape so far.  I’m so used to Illustrator though that I might just install the old copy that we have as well. For example, it took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to ungroup a set of shapes.  Mon dieu!  The pro is that you can directly export your images to the file type that the Craftrobo software uses. Very handy!

So, I will try to keep updates going on when I start figuring out more.  It’s a very powerful little tool – the challenge is just learning how to leverage all of it!  I’m up for it!  stay tuned..

Posted by Carrie on Friday, December 19, 2008
Categories: scrapbooking, silhouette · 1 Comment »