woensdag 8 januari 2014

On the Silhouette: Making tabbed dividers for my Collins Personal Organizer




After spending a good few days unsuccesfully looking for cutting files to cut my own dividers for my new Collins Personal Organizer I had a go at making some myself using my beloved Silhouette cutting machine. And it was surprisingly easy:

Scan a coloured (white won't work for this) tab or sheet from the planner. Be careful about how you place your original so that your holes (or tabs) will end up on the right side when you cut later on:

Open scanned doc. Make sure you have it set for opening .jpeg, not Silhouette files or else they won't show up. Move the scanned shape slightly away from the edge, it will be easier to work with later.


Click on the 'Open Trace window' blue and yellow button in upper right corner. And then, in the right hand menu, click on 'Select trace area' at the top. Draw a box around the shape.


Now the important bit: go to trace settings and unclick 'High Pass Filter', click 'Low Pass Filter' and then start moving the 'Threshold' slider up till your entire shape is a solid yellow. For me that was around '88' but it will differ depending on the colour of your original scan. Don't go all the way to 100% or you'll loose the punch holes.


Now press 'Trace' at the top and a red outline will appear:


You can now remove the original scanned image from the red cut lines. And then before doing anything you SAVE your file as a Silhouette file so you can re-use this as often as you like. 


Time for cutting!

Click 'Send to Silhouette' button at the main menu bar and follow cutting instructions. Happy cutting!

 

Let me know how you get on!