DIY Custom Earring Cards with Silhouette Sketching & Gelly Roll Pens

Looking for a creative way to level up your handmade jewelry packaging? In this DIY tutorial, I’ll show you how to create custom earring cards using Silhouette Sketching and vibrant Sakura Gelly Roll pens. These unique earring display cards not only showcase your earrings beautifully but also add a professional, artistic touch to your small business or handmade gifts. Using Silhouette Studio software and your Silhouette cutting machine, you can sketch intricate designs, logos, or text with ease. Whether you’re selling on Etsy, prepping for a craft fair, or making gifts for friends, these handmade earring cards are the perfect finishing touch!

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Have you ever made custom earring cards with Silhouette? How about sketched with your Silhouette machine? Why not combine the two and create custom earring cards?
I created the projects shown in this post to send with a gift to a friend.

Customize your designs for your specific project, a gift, or just because!

Think it, design it, create it!

Sketched Earring Card Supplies

Grab your supplies and just get started.

Supplies:

Silhouette Cameo 5 – Crafter Cuts or Silhouette America (shown in tutorial)
or Silhouette Curio 2 – Crafter Cuts or Silhouette America
or another Silhouette model machine
Silhouette Autoblade – Crafter Cuts or Silhouette America
Pen adapter for specific model of Silhouette (see specific model info here)
Silhouette cutting mat or Electrostatic Mat
Neenah Bright White Cardstock
Sakura Gelly Roll pens – black or Retractable Gelly Roll Pen in Type C Pen Holder (shown)

Sketched Earring Card Setup in Silhouette

Use a premade earring card file or create your own. Then add a design to the earring card for sketching.

Screenshot of Silhouette Studio software displaying a design for sketched earring cards, featuring a floral vine design and design setup options.

I used the Long Earring Display Card by Clikchic Designs – Design #389717 for this project.

Keep in mind the software and machines are designed as cutting machines, so the red “cut” lines on the screen are exactly how a sketch pen will sketch out. It will sketch the outer lines of a “cut” file. If a design or font is not filled in, the sketch pen will not magically fill things in unless it’s told to.

If you want a design or font to be filled in by a pen, you can use the Sketch Panel/Line Effects Panel to add a fill. Keep in mind that the sketch fill pattern will affect the time to sketch the design. When a design or font is filled in with a small sketch fill pattern, that pen is going over and over an area just like if you were filling in a design or font by hand with a pen. That can mean that it cements the paper to the cutting mat, so be careful removing the materials from the mat.

Sketch designs, fonts, or single line fonts can work better for sketching without having to do much to alter the designs.

However, not all sketch designs or fonts are truly designed for sketching. The file name may simply include sketch, so it’s always good to click on the Send tab and take a closer look to see where the pen may travel to get an idea of what it will turn out like.

Find additional tips on sketch designs in this post – How to Sketch with Silhouette.

Install the pen in the Silhouette machine and test.

Close-up view of a Silhouette cutting machine with a pen holder and white cardstock positioned for crafting.

The Silhouette pen holders allow for a wide variety of pens to be used in the machines. The installation process is the same no matter if using the Silhouette Type A, Type B, or Type C Pen Holders. Find the collar that fits the best for the size pen you are using and make sure it’s secure.

Did you know that the cap on the Silhouette pen holder has a purpose? Keep the cap!
Place the cap on the pen holder when you install the pen and when the tip of the pen touches the cap, that is your pen depth. This should work for most pen types and all Silhouette pen holders.

If needed, you can also use a popsicle or craft stick placed underneath the pen tip when you insert the pen holder in the machine. This will show you if the pen is too far down in the adapter or installed at the correct height. Pens installed too low in the adapter have a greater chance of drawing drag marks.

Silhouette Sketch Popsicle Stick Trick — Silhouette Cameo 3 with Type A Pen Holder

If the pen is too low, simply remove it and lift it up in the pen holder a bit before tightening the collars. Proper setup and testing will save you frustration and drag lines across your project.

If you are working on a project with specific materials such as envelopes, etc. Test on cardstock first to save your more expensive materials.

Sketching a Design with Silhouette

If sketching and cutting a project, set up the design to Cut by Line Color. I use red lines for the cut lines and blue lines for sketch lines.

Screenshot of Silhouette Studio software displaying design settings for sketched earring cards, featuring a blue intricate design on the left side of the interface.

I recommend sketching first and then cutting, so there is less chance that the design will move. Do NOT unload the cutting mat after the design has sketched.

A Silhouette cutting machine in action, sketching various designs including flowers and a butterfly on a sheet of white cardstock.

Uncheck the sketch lines and check the box next to the cut color, install a blade, and send the job to cut.

For more details on sketching by line color, check out this post – Silhouette Send Tab – Line Color.

A Silhouette cutting machine with white cardstock displaying multiple unsketched earring cards featuring floral designs and decorative borders.

Add you earrings and you have DIY custom earrings cards that can be used as gifts and more!

A variety of handmade earring cards showcasing different designs and earrings, displayed on a textured surface.

Want to see this in action?
Check out this quick glimpse on the Silhouette Secrets+ YouTube channel.

Just get started! Set it up to sketch and just start selecting designs and sketching. It is so much fun to just play around with it, even if you do not have a specific project or purpose in mind. Grab some cardstock and set up the machine to sketch and just play!

Additional Resources for Sketching:

Save this for future reference by pinning the image below.

A collection of custom DIY earring display cards featuring different designs and earrings, with a title banner reading 'DIY Earring Cards Sketching with Silhouette'.

Enjoy !

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