The Good Life | Happiness | Tazhiana
Hello Cocoa Vanilla friends, and welcome back to cutfile week! I am not a pro when it comes to using cut files but I have a few tips and supplies to make them a bit more accessible. I’m scrapping a selfie this week that I took on my 29th birthday and I’m using the Happiness collection as well as a cut file from the Cut To You shop for Cocoa Vanilla.
I started but cutting the florals on white cardstock and cutting an offset piece on vellum. I knew I wanted a more abstract look rather than perfect backing, and I knew I wanted to make my own backing paper using watercolor paper and Distress Oxides and the vellum would be perfect to mask any imperfections. I can’t take any credit for this idea – I borrowed it from my friend, Laura Wonsik. So for tip number 1: get to know your design software. I’ve had a Silhouette for years and I’m just learning all of its features like offsetting and print and cut. Watch some YouTube videos and give yourself time to play before you actually sit down to make your project.
After cutting my elements and making my watercolor backgrounds, I traced the floral pieces, roughly cut it and adhered it to my cut file. This brings me to tip number 2: gather supplies. For cutfiles, a sharp pencil for tracing, a fine tipped pair of scissors, a fine tipped glue bottle and some clear vellum safe adhesive will go a long way. My fussy cut scissors are from EK Tools and I keep my glue in an 18 gauge Fineline bottle.
Once my cut file elements were ready, the rest of the layout was easy to assemble. I ripped off some patterned paper to add some interest to my background, matted my photo with some papers from the 6×8 paper pad, and embellished using the die cut ephemera and the cardstock stickers. My title came from the cardstock title pack and I popped a few elements up on foam to add some dimension to the page.
That’s it for me this week! I hope you found some inspiration here as well as some tips to demystify the cutting machine. Till next time, keep it crafty friends.
I took inspiration from the skull and cross bones design in the image and also the colours. I cut out a skull and cross bone design from black cardstock using my Silhouette Cameo and used is one of the main focal points on my layout. I popped up the skull using craft foam and adhered the cross bones flat to the page. In the eyes of the skull, I backed one of them with one of the paper s from the 
The Totally Rad collection has lots of pieces with the skull and crossbones so I pulled out what I had left and used them as embellishments. The large white and black skull and cross bones was fussy cut from the
To finish off, I added the chippie crown in the chipboard pieces pack from the 
And here. is version two! I decided to go bold and bright, ensuring my lettering really stood out which I felt it got a little lost in the first version of the layout. The only drawback was I had to convert my photo to black and white, which I think lessens the beauty of the shot.
On both layouts I have used Story Teller paper as my base so there was a slight contrast with the black dots instead of a flat white. My second version I have used a turquoise cardstock, cutting the Story Teller paper down to 11×11 inches. I also used the same cardstock to cut Girl Squad cut file. on my Silhouette Cameo, in my first layout I used white to cut the Girl Squad cut file.
I used the beautiful Forget Me Not paper to paper piece the Girl Squad cut file, wanting a smaller print so I could use some of the larger floral die cuts without them getting ‘lost’.
From the 6×8 inch paper pad I used the Lacewing paper and fussy cut numerous butterflies. I wanted smaller butterflies hence why I used the sheet in the 6×8 inch pad and not the 12×12 paper. I added these with foam tape to create a 3d effect.
I chose the largest floral bunch from the die cut ephemera pack and added in a way you could still see the lettering. Again I did this with foam tape to add dimension. I added some of the pink and turquoise enamel dots to flowers and under some of the butterfly wings.
Before adding my photo I used some of the paint blotches from the Clear Sticker Sheet (I adore the clear stickers so much!) to ‘frame’ my photo and draw your eye to it. I used foam tape to attach my photo. I finished off adding some phrase stickers from the Accessory Sticker Sheet. 
