I've normally outsourced my sticker-making in the past, as in providing scans
of my artwork and sending them out to a company for them to print and cut.
Normally I've used Awesome Merch and they've always done really well for
me, I've also gone the more labour-intensive route of hand-cutting my
own stickers with scissors individually which takes forever. So I finally decided to
invest in a cutting machine so I can hopefully save my hands and save some
time but still have control over the sticker-making process without having to
send it out to someone else to be made. And the reason that I wanted to do this
is that I'm thinking of offering sticker sets and individual stickers as rewards
on patreon as part of like a reward bundle every month and I was thinking about how
it was gonna work logistically and-... right sorry if I'm out of breath.
What was I saying? Yeah logistically, I was trying to figure out how that would
work, outsourcing it, because obviously with Patreon, the amount of people that
will want the specific reward bundles is gonna change every month probably,
so outsourcing it just wouldn't really make sense, like I would never know how
many I'm supposed to be ordering. So it made sense to invest in a sticker
cutting machine finally. And also I considered like hand cutting them myself,
like kiss-cutting them because you can cut stickers out of a sheet like this
and not cut all the way through. I've got this fun like cutting tool that I can do
that with by hand but I was also thinking just the amount I might have to
do and whether or not I'd be compromising on the quality of what
people are gonna get if I'm doing that over and over and over again for several
sticker sheets. So anyway after a lot of research into what a sticker cutting
machine might meet my needs, I landed on the Silhouette Cameo 4. I've actually
been researching this for a year+. I'd originally wanted the Cameo 3 and
when I decided on that after loads and loads of comparisons, I didn't get it
right away and the Cameo 4 hadn't even been announced yet, but by the time I
came around to buying the Cameo 3 the Cameo 4 had just come out and I
found it impossible to find a Cameo 3 anywhere so quickly. So I had to
wait a little while to see how the Cameo 4 compared, how it fared, because I
didn't want to just suddenly jump on that one after having done no research
on it whatsoever. So here we finally are. I did finally buy it, but of course I
have never used anything like this so I thought I would share my first steps
into this whole process. Obviously not a tutorial. I have no idea what I'm doing.
This is just gonna be a vlog of me trying possibly/probably failing to
figure this all out. So let's start at first with the sticker designs
themselves. The theme for this month's reward bundle is going to be 'vintage
botanicals' so this is going to get turned into a sticker set, and these will
be individual stickers- I think I might just edit out that twig
because I think it takes away and that on its own I think would make a really
cool sticker- so these are the designs I'm going to scan in for print. Also for
scanning and printing, these are going to get turned into prints that will get
sent out and then these original paintings actually if anyone wants them
will get sent out as well just as they are. But let's focus on the stickers first.
I painted my nails earlier and I really do not like this colour but we're gonna go with it.
I'm just doing my usual digital cleanup of the scans, I separate the artwork
from the plain white background. On the sticker sheet, I'm also just going to
give each sticker a white border and add a coloured background to the sheet itself
just for aesthetics honestly, and I'll save each element separately including
the background. I'll have that as a separate layer I
guess. And I think the software that comes with the Silhouette allows you to
quite easily select the elements that you want to be cut out but I don't know
for sure so I'll just save everything separately as PNG files just so that I
can keep a transparent background on it. that'll just make it easier to move
things around and position them and get as many on a single piece of paper as I can.
Right all done! Finally! That took way longer than I thought it would but
everything's cleaned up now, I've saved it all to the cloud so that I can access
all of those files at the office which is where my cutting machine is and is where
I'm heading now.
Okay here we are and here it is. Honestly, I don't really know
where to start. I've got myself some lunch because I'm starving and I've
remembered Sarica had a really- Sarica from Sarica Studio- she has a YouTube
channel and an Etsy shop among other things and she's actually sent me some
of her stickers before but she has a video on YouTube about how she makes her
stickers and from what I remember it's really in-depth. She uses the Silhouette
Cameo 3 I think so I'm gonna eat my lunch, check out that video, see if it
helps me out just to see if I can learn a little something about what I should
be doing.
Ok that helped quite a bit. I have the software open here and she
started with a rounded rectangle that was I think 5 by 7. I'm already so
confused. Right I'm gonna download my sticker files and then it looked like
she just dragged in the background-... oh
yes! That did work! Oh, that's so cool Ok, this is a lot more intuitive than I
expected it to be. Ok I'm feeling hopeful now. So I'm just gonna start dragging in
the individual stickers then... I guess... I'm glad I did put them on separate files
cos it looks like that helped. Okay-.... I mean, why is that happening? Let's.... let's
do that again... let's get the background on... yeah... and then maybe if I
deselect that background layer, drag in one of the stickers...? No. Why? I
don't understand. Maybe if I put it over here...? Yeah, is that in?
Okay and then if I put it over... okay! Okay, cool.
That makes sense, so I'm just gonna start adding in all my stickers.
I think that looks okay.
Now I think it's about to get a little bit more difficult because it's all
about cut-lines now. So I'm going to give this one at a different colour because
I want that one to cut all the way through. I'll make that blue. Right, if I
select this whole thing um... what's this... trace?
And up the threshold...?
Okay I think I have got something there. I lowered the threshold on the tracing
tool and it did give me an outline of the shape. I can just see those of
different little dots that I don't really want there. These stamps, I'm gonna
have to work out how to do my own outline on here but everything else
looks okay. I've just offset the cut line now away from the actual design but it's
still within this white line. I might see if I get it a tiny bit closer.
That is that done. Okay and now I need to get rid of these cut lines. Did
that get rid of all of the-...? I think it did. I think that got rid of the
different cut lines that I didn't want in there. It's really difficult to
just click on the thing that you want to click on. Okay okay. There is a way, I know
to, edit the lines that you already have. Some of these need like
stretching out but-... this one maybe...?
That looks right. Oh yeah, okay.
I wish there was a way to kind of lock the layer below so you're not
moving things around so much willy-nilly. I suppose you just have to be really
careful and pay attention to what you're actually clicking on. I somehow feel like
there must be an easier way to do this but for now this is the best I can do.
This is a test of course so that's what I'm here for.
I'm learning about what I need to learn more about basically. But I think the
only way to really get to know a software like this or anything new is to
just dive in and make a mess- which is what I'm doing right now- and
just make mistakes, so you know what you should be looking into and what you
should be trying to figure out. Okay that is... yes, yes, yes... okay, I feel like I'm getting
the hang of this. So that's all my cut lines in. I think that's okay. And then I
can move this back here and can I just duplicate it? Yeah. So this
would be when I print and cut it but what I'm gonna do, because I need to
figure out my cutting settings- like the depth that I need it to be- so I'm going
to make a new file with something really simple and I'm just going to test out
some cutting depths I guess.
I'm so confused. I clearly have something wrong because I don't think it's cutting
through. All I can see where it's kind of sliding across the paper but there's no
cut in the paper whatsoever and I'm starting to think that maybe I don't
even have a blade in here but I don't know how to be able to tell if I do. Yeah
I'm gonna do some tinkering. This might take a while but wish me luck.
Okay here's the thing right, I've got this shape here to cut out and I've got it
programmed at the moment for cardstock just cos I want it to do it as hard as
possible. These are the settings, then I have it set up over here to cut, there's
the blade in there, paper here and if I click send you can see it does do
something. It thinks it's doing something
and it did that in the shapes I want it to cut out but then it's literally
nothing here. I know it's like something really simple like I need to untick a
box or something or change how the file is set up but this is taking forever and
I'm losing the light and I really wanted to have at least one sticker sheet made
by the end of the day just so that I could- I don't know, rest easily knowing
I've got it figured out. All I can do is keep fiddling with the settings, keep
trying every different thing that I can. Hopefully I'll figure it out today.
It cannot be that complicated. I know it's just one thing that I'm doing wrong.
I think I figured it out um... and I knew it'd be something simple! So it looks
like I've just pushed this thing in here and that has locked in the blade I
believe. Didn't see that on any instructions,
obviously I didn't pay enough attention!! I'm hoping that this is gonna make the
difference. Okay, okay. This is it! Oh yeah. Okay yeah. That has actually cut through
now.
Yes! I have a sticker! That only took me two hours.
And you know what, I think the setting that I have that on just by chance is
decent for kiss cutting a sticker. So now I just need to find a setting to cut all
the way through the paper. Oh my god, the relief! And then I can-
I have to figure out how to print and cut. Byt one thing at a time, let's figure
out how much pressure I need on the blade to cut through.
I knew it'd be
something basic. But luckily since I've overcome that hurdle
I am speeding ahead. So I just now need to figure out how to print and cut
and it might be time to revisit YouTube and see if someone can help me out there.
Alright, I set up my print file, put in these registration marks that should
help when it comes to cutting it. The colours are a bit off but this is just
the test run so now I think I can send it to cut out the stickers. Awesome!
It's gonna take some tweaking but I have pretty much kind of figured it out. I'm
gonna now just do the individual stickers but I feel like I know what I'm
doing now. In the future I will mess around with the colours, make sure
that everything's lined up properly. I'm really happy!
That's so cool! I love this! I'm going to do a few more practice rounds just so
that I know I've got the hang of it, do some tweaking, get everything lined up
properly, get the colours right. I need to not go overboard because I don't know
how many people are actually gonna want these. By the time you're watching this,
my Patreon will be live so if you do want these stickers, these stickers or
any of the prints you saw before, or even an original painting, all the different
tier levels will be explained over there. I'll leave a link below and if you do
want the 'vintage botanical' themed set, anyone that pledges any time during
March, this is what you're gonna get! But the theme is gonna
change every month, I'm really looking forward to even maybe taking requests.
It's been really fun just having a creative
project to work on like this, coming up with ideas and I'm back to doing the
kind of thing I love doing which is just making stuff. Can't wait to do all the
packaging as well because you know that's just my favorite thing.
It was stressful but now that I've got it figured out, I'm feeling
good about it! Feeling really excited to see what else I can make. I have to
thank Sarica again. If it wasn't for her and her video I think this would have
taken me weeks so I'll leave a link below to her video, to her YouTube
channel, to her shop and Instagram. Do send her some love, she's amazing and the
stuff she makes it to cool, just check out her shop! And also I'll leave any
links below to any other videos that I found useful in this whole process.
Anyway guys thank you so much for watching, I am going to spend the rest of
the evening/night/wee hours of the morning having more fun
with these stickers, seeing what I can come up with but, it's meant a lot that
you spent this time with me. If you can't follow me over on patreon you just don't
want to, just you watching this video is more than enough support so thank you so
much for being here and I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next one.
bye!