acrylic blank Archives

It is Back to School here for us and I made a little something to add to my kid’s backpacks. These bag tags are 3″ in size and with the lobster claw, perfect to clip onto their backpack zipper.

Our school colors are blue and white, so this little paw print acrylic from Craft Chameleon works great. There are many options for colors both solid and glitter, just click on the drop down box for more options.
For the girl’s tags I used the white glitter with Siser PSV in blue and the boy’s are solid white with Oracal 651 blue.

It came with a cut file that is sized perfectly for the acrylic blank, so all you have to do is customize it if needed and set it up to cut.

*Line color added and thickened for visual

How to make the bag tag design

For these bag tags, I wanted to add the first initial into the design. I typed the first initial using the Text Style Tool and then changed the font using the Text Style Panel.
I used Lori Whitlock’s School Font Design #273761 from the Silhouette Design Store because it was a nice bold font.

Once the properties (color, font style, etc) of the first letter is set, then make a copy of the letter and change the text to the next letter. I find this saves time when you are using multiple text designs that are similar. In this case, all of the initials would be the same font, so I just copied and pasted the letter and then changed it for the next one.

Place the letter in the design where you want and you are ready to cut.

The Cameo will cut exactly where you see the bold red cut lines when you click on the Send tab. I chose to Send mine to cut this way with weeding lines between the designs.

If you are creating a design to show to someone, you can make the design look more realistic and having the letter “cut out” or subtracted from the paw print by making it a Compound Path.

Both designs will cut the exact same way as you can see from the bold red cut lines on the Send tab.

I can’t wait to show the kids when they get home from school.

Here are the supplies I used to create these bag tags:
– 3″ acrylic paw print
– Swivel Lobster Clasp
– 1 inch Silver Tone Links
– Triangle bail (small)
– Bent Nose pliers
– Siser PSV adhesive glitter vinyl (blue)
– Siser PSV transfer tape
– Oracal 651 adhesive vinyl

And here is a quick video on how I applied the vinyl to the acrylic blanks.

I love that with my Silhouette, I can make so many different custom projects.

Enjoy !

THANK YOU for your support! How can you help? Click HERE & buy a coffee. Every little bit helps with the cost of running the site.

Looking for more in-depth, step-by-step classes, check out all of my online Silhouette classes on my Teachable site HERE.

Over on the Silhouette School blog today I showed how to use the Cut by Fill Color option to create a layered vinyl decal for perfect placement.

Now I’m going to show you how I took that design, shrunk it down and used the same technique to create a bag tag for our Bus Driver.

I started with a 3″ clear acrylic circle blank from Craft Chameleon.

I love that Craft Chameleon acrylics come with a cut file included. I opened up the template for this shape and copied and pasted it to a new design mat to use as my base. Or you could draw a perfect circle by holding down the Shift key and then resizing the circle to the exact dimensions under the Transform Panel – Scale tab.

Now, I can use this to create my design in.

I took the School bus design by Kelly Lollar Designs that I used as an example in my guest post, and shrunk it down with the registration (layering) marks. I wanted to make sure that the bus fit in the center of the acrylic shape with space around the edges for text.

Now, I duplicated my circle and made it a little bit smaller. This is so the text will fit down inside of the acrylic shape better. Move the original 3″ circle off the mat as it’s not needed any longer or you can delete it.

Then select just the bus and the circle and use the Align Tab in the Transform Panel to Align Center or from the QAT (Quick Access Toolbar). Do not include the registration (layering) marks in this, as it is just the bus and circle we want to center together.

Now, type out the text, select the font style and size. Double click back on the text to get the circle in the bottom left corner. Grab that circle and drag it to your circle shape.

As you drag it to the circle you will notice it attaches to the circle. Play around with the alignment of the text to your liking and then use the slider bar to increase the distance from the circle either inside or outside of the circle.

Now, I decided to increase the Character Spacing under the Text Style Panel, just a bit on my letters to spread it out a bit. And then readjust your words around the circle. Each Font style that you choose will give you different looks, so you will need to adjust for whatever you choose.

Now, once the text is modified, it will no longer be editable text. This is a good time to make a copy of the text & circle and pull it off the mat, just in case you want to edit it later. If you select only the text to pull it off, it will release from the shape, so you want to select both the text and the shape and make a copy.

In order to separate the text from the circle, right click on the text and choose Convert to Path.

And now, move the circle off the mat as we do not want it to cut.

Now, we are ready to cut out decal just as I detailed in the Silhouette School guest post.

Once we have our decal cut out and layered together, we are ready to apply to the acrylic shape.

I went ahead and placed the shape on my Silhouette cutting mat on the sticky side, so it wouldn’t move while I applied the decal. The acrylic blanks come with a protective covering on them to prevent scratching before use, so make sure to peel that off before you add your decal.

And then I lined the decal up and placed it down, burnishing it well and took the transfer tape off.

And with any project there’s always 1 piece that may not work just right. As you can see I’m missing the School bus title on it. This did not weed well when I was layering the decal and after messing with it, I decided I’d just re-cut it and apply.

I duplicated the design and then un-grouped everything and deleted all but the School Bus. Then I duplicated the School bus 3 times just in case…. if I had only cut it once you know it wouldn’t have weeded correctly, but since I cut it 3 times….. all 3 weeded beautifully with reverse weeding.

Then I gathered the rest of the tools to attach the pieces of the bag tag.

I just received these bent nose pliers from Craft Chameleon and using them 1 time, I’m in love with them. They are one of those tools like my Close to My Heart nonstick scissors that will be my go to tools. Now, I could have just gone to the garage and “borrowed” a couple pairs of pliers from there, but these were the perfect size for my hands and worked wonderfully. I am so glad I ordered them after watching Craft Chameleon’s live FB video a few weeks ago.

And now I have a little gift to give to the bus driver.

Can you think of things you might layer with adhesive vinyl? Those first few times you attempt it can seem daunting, but it is another project that takes practice and the layering (registration) marks make it much more manageable to layer a design. What will you design and cut?

Enjoy !

THANK YOU for your support! How can you help? Click HERE & buy a coffee. Every little bit helps with the cost of running the site.

Looking for more in-depth, step-by-step classes, check out all of my online Silhouette classes on my Teachable site HERE.