Fabric Wall Art with Silhouette’s New larger Cutting Mat | Tutorial

This last Christmas my Mom gave me a pretty special gift that I have repurposed and will now be re-gifting it right back to her for Mother's Day.  Now don't worry, this is the kind of re-gifting that is alright, even special in my book.  Thanks to my Silhouette CAMEO I've been able to make a stunning piece of fabric wall art with Silhouette's new larger cutting mat for my Mom…

Over Christmas my Mom gave me some beautiful buttons that she salvaged from a dress that my grandmother used to wear.  It was one of those 1950's black Audrey Hepburn kind of dresses that my Mom just loved.  She thought I could use the fabulous buttons for one of my projects.

Sure enough I thought of a project that would be perfect for these treasured family heirlooms, however I didn't have a cutting mat big enough to make the project just right.  I wanted to make a simple piece of wall art that was the silhouette of a black dress with the buttons on it.  The problem… if I used my 12×12 cutting mat the dress would be too small and the buttons would look silly.

Then I when to CHA and learned about Silhouette's new 12×24 cutting mat and I knew it was going to be perfect for my project. I ran out and bought some black dress fabric, some off white canvas duck cloth for the background and a 10×20 frame that I found on clearance.

To start I ironed the black fabric onto some of the Silhouette Clean Cut Fabric Interfacing and then placed it on the 12×24 inch mat…

I then started the search for the perfect black dress silhouette for the project.  Unfortunately, all of the dresses in the Silhouette design gallery didn't fit the bill so I searched online for the perfect black dress {isn't that always the never ending search? A black dress for my party now I have to find one for a project! he he…}  I finally found a great SVG file that was PERFECT!! Because I've upgraded to the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition it was not a problem at all to use the SVG file. I downloaded the image and then open the design studio…

I opened the image and sized it to 14×7 and then added the text at the bottom. Using the Modern No. 20 font and sized it to fit the frame.

Next, I had to go to the Cut Style tool on the top right of the screen to allow my Cameo to recognize the SVG file while it was cutting.  While the image was selected I clicked on the Cut Edge tool and a red line appeared around the edge of the dress showing that the cameo now recognized the image and was ready to cut…

I placed the fabric lined with the Silhouette Clean Cut Fabric Interfacing on the 12×24 mat and ran it though the CAMEO.  I cut the dress first and then the words, just to make sure I didn't have any issues.

I removed the paper backing from the fabric and then ironed it onto the canvas duck cloth that I had cut to the perfect 10×20 size to fit the frame. Then I hot glued the precious buttons to the dress.  Next I cut the letters out of the same fabric…

I used some vinyl transfer tape, just like you would with vinyl, to transfer the letters onto the canvas duck cloth.  This is where it got a little tricky.  I wasn't sure how the transfer tape would react to the heat of the iron, but I wanted my word to stay perfectly intact.  So, I took a risk.  I carefully and quickly ironed the letters through the transfer tape and it worked perfect.  I worked fast and I didn't place the iron on for very long. I could tell that it could cause issues if I lingered too long.

I removed the transfer tape and it looked PERFECT!! I was so excited! I placed it in the frame and was in awe.  Look at those letters… THEY ARE FABRIC!! 

Look at the clean cut and the perfect lines…

Have you ever had an idea in your head and once you've made it, it far and away surpasses your expectations?  This one totally did! I have to say I am madly and deeply in love with my Cameo now {not that I wasn't before, ha ha}…

Sorry Mom, you get to see your Mother's Day present early!

What a fun way to display my Grandmother's beautiful buttons.  A Priceless treasure that could've easily been tucked away in a drawer and forgotten about.  Now my Mom can have this on her wall and remember her beautiful and elegant mother every time she walks by this lovely fabric wall art. Happy Mother's Day Mom… I LOVE YOU!!

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