My Love of the PECM

My husband and I used to run a glass etching business.  It was awesome!  We would ship etched glass all over the world and loved getting wonderful feedback from happy customers when they would receive their personalized glass.  Our glass was done right and looked beautiful when finished.  That's because we took our time and used the sandblasting method which provided a smoother, more even design than the liquid stuff you buy at craft stores.  In order to do that though, we had to have a vinyl cutter or a Personal Electronic Cutting Machine (PECM).  After tons of research, we ended up with a very simple Silhouette Cameo.

This little machine has become one of my favorite tools/toys.  When we purchased it, I had no idea how many different projects it could be used to create!  Last week, I pulled it back out of it's box and decided to have some fun.

First, I always keep two kinds of vinyl on hand.  One is the permanent vinyl and the other is the removable, but still sticky vinyl.  The kind used for those vinyl wordings you see on walls.  So what was to be my first project?  MadPad plays softball.  She uses your everyday hot pink batting helmet that looks pretty boring, even though it's a fun hot pink!  No longer is it boring!  After letting her pick which font to use, she now has her name across the front of the helmet (that's right, beware pitcher...this one's gonna hit it past ya) and she has her number on the back.  And since we are Louisiana at heart, she also got a fleur-de-lis on either side.  She loves the way it turned out.

I hated to have my Cameo all hooked up and ready to go, only to use it for one thing, so what else was I to do?   Well, Poo and Tater just got new beds for their bedroom and I'm wanting to paint their room a soft white to pull it together.  They have everything hot pink and zebra print, but I didn't want this to be zebra printed.  I wanted something that would grow with them, and still look good later.  And so this project was born and cost me nothing!  I had two 16x20" canvasses in my craft closet, as well as all the paint.  I painted the entire canvas with a coat of white paint then taped off the edges 1" from the outside.  Next I painted the sides and edges all black to give it the look of a black frame.  While that was drying, I did a layout on my awesome Silhouette Cameo and cut it out on Contact paper (an awesome idea from my wonderful cousin, Kathie, who is also an avid Cameo user).  The Contact paper is much cheaper than vinyl and makes a great stencil.  I centered my design and simple traced it with a light pencil, then painted the design on.  I did this for each of the girls.  It is by no means perfect, but I love the way they turned out.  I think if I had used the vinyl resist, it would have stuck to the canvas and I could have just painted over it, then pulled it off to reveal the design.  But again, Contact paper is much cheaper than my vinyl so I'll save it for another project.   Here are the final canvasses. 

Won't these look great when I get the walls painted that soft white?!?!  

These are just two projects I did over two days last week with my Silhouette Cameo.  I've created tumblers for our beach trips and cut out stickers for the girls.  You can even cut out designs on fabric!  And this machine is a scrapbookers dream come true!  Believe it or not, scrapbooking is the only crafting hobby I don't do!  

So, if you are a crafter and looking for a machine to help you do almost anything, this is your winner. To me, it's a little on the pricey side, but I definitely believe I have gotten my moneys worth from it.  

Oh, and so many people have asked why I went with the Silhouette Cameo over the Cricut.  With the Cricut, you are limited to their cartridges, which end up costing a small fortune.  Every time you want a new font, you have to buy a new cartridge.  With the Cameo, any font that is on your computer is recognized by the Silhouette software.  When we had our business, customers wanted personalized pictures and fonts.  I could create a design for them in my Adobe programs and easily transfer it to Silhouette.  No extra cartridges to purchases.  

All in all, it is just an amazing machine.  Now on to my next project....

The Momma