Friday, May 5, 2017
Silhouette Sticky Mat Fix
My sweet husband game me a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas. I loved it!!!
Up until this week, I had only cut vinyl with the cutting machine, but after seeing some Easter mantel inspiration, I wanted to cut some paper letters and palm leaves. My first attempt at cutting palm leaves was ridiculous. Everything stuck and ripped on my cutting mat. The next day I lugged the kids to Hobby Lobby to buy some artificial palm leaves. Easy peasy. But I still wanted the Silhouette to cut letters for me. After Googling some tips for reducing mat stickiness, I learned that my card stock paper was too thin, and my mat was "too new."
I tried sticking my mat to the carpet a few times. I applied a scrap paper to it over and over to reduce the sticky. Nothing worked. I knew my letters would curl or rip, and I didn't want to go back to the store for thicker paper. I only needed the paper to barely stick the to mat, why couldn't I figure this out?
And then ta-da!!! I had an idea!!!
I cut a piece of scrap paper a bit smaller than the card stock I wanted to cut. Then I overlapped the nice paper on top of the scrap paper. The nice paper overlapped an inch on the top and bottom, and barely on the side. That little bit of sticky held my nice sheet of paper to the mat, but everything came off easily after cutting. No more curled or ripped paper!!
My Silhouette Cameo blade was set to 3, and the speed was set to 4. Each letter cut out perfectly. One more tip: as the paper went through the Cameo, I held the paper straight behind the machine to make sure the letters didn't get stuck in the rollers on the way out. Since the letters wouldn't be sticky, they would be more likely to catch on something. Luckily, all went well.
The nice paper peeled off easily, and since the letters were not actually stuck down, they had no curls or tears.
I taped each letter onto a palm leaf, and hung my banner on the fireplace mantle. I love it!! And I'm glad that I can use a sticky mat with thin paper in the future. I hope this tip helps you too.
See how I made the Hosanna banner at this post.
Happy Easter everyone!
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