Distressed Background Designs in Silhouette Studio

Have you ever wanted to have distressed background or edges on a pattern or photo? While Silhouette Studio does not have the same tools as a graphics program like Photoshop does, there are still ways you can get distressed or grunge edges in the Silhouette Studio software.

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Recently I was creating a bundle of 20 cards for a card swap that I signed up for through Erin Reed Makes and saw an idea to create 6 card backgrounds from 1 sheet of 12″ x 12″ paper on Pinterest. It was a distressed background with white space left for additional elements to be added to the card front.

Now, these distressed designs are not ideal for cutting as they are quite detailed, but they are awesome for print projects, like creating card backgrounds, sublimation, or other printed projects.

I grabbed some clipping mask png files from ClikChic Designs on Etsy and created exactly what I wanted. But, I knew it could be easier or more available to Silhouette users, so I reached out to ClikChic Designs and we started working together testing some designs and I’m excited to say there are a few in the Silhouette Design Store! If this is a popular idea, you may see more too – so make sure to leave a comment below so we know if you like this style of designs.

Let’s take a look at how I created this distressed background pattern in Silhouette Studio.

Distressed Background Designs in Silhouette

Open Silhouette Studio and set up the page size for your printer.

If you don’t have the capability to print a 12″ x 12″ sheet of paper, don’t let that stop you. This could be done with whatever size you can print on to create projects with.

Open the distressed design and scale it to the size you want to fill as much of the page as you want.

This is called Grungy Ink Clipping Mask or Border by Clikchic Designs – Design #368071 or you can grab Dry Paint Grunge Clipping Mask Frame or Border by Clikchic Designs – Design #368127

A .studio file, which is what is in the Silhouette Design Store or a .svg file is a cut file. This means that you can add patterns to the design. If you open another file type such as a .png or .jpeg, you would need to do additional steps to work with that file. (See below for additional information)

**Currently as I type this, you will need to download these files direct to your computer to use as the library syncing is broken – click HERE for how to do that.

If the pattern is outside Silhouette, drag it from the My Computer folder location and hold it over top of the design. The design will fill with that pattern.

If you move too fast doing this step, it may not work or you may end up with a small square that won’t disappear without closing the software to reset it. Go slow and hold that pattern on top of the design in Silhouette Studio until it fills the shape.

Patterns from the Silhouette Library could also be used as well. For more on Patterns in Silhouette, check out these tutorials HERE.

Next, change the Line Color to Transparent to see how the pattern will look. This step also ensures that the red cut border will not print.

The next steps would depend on what project you are working on. I printed the design on a 12″ x 12″ sheet of Recollections cardstock.

Then I used my paper trimmer, cut the 12″ sheet at 6″ in the middle of the pattern and then again cut those sections down to 4″ widths. Once I had each section I could trim it down further to 4″ x 5.25″ for my card backgrounds.

I added a stamped sentiment to the front and added some rhinestone gems to each card.

There are so many options! 6 card backgrounds from 1 sheet of 12″ x 12″ cardstock

Find more designs like this HERE.

A great big thank you to ClikChic Designs for working with me and the idea to make this style of designs easily available to Silhouette users. Check out their blog post for additional ideas on this technique HERE.

I have collected designs by ClikChic for awhile. And then I saw on their Instagram channel where they showed how they create their designs by hand painting them and then digitizing them. I was mesmerized. So make sure to check out their Instagram too!

For some additional ideas on working with distressed images, check out this blog post – 3 Ways to Distress Photo Edges in Silhouette Studio.

Save this for future reference by pinning the image below.

Enjoy !

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