Good news, guys! Today we have not one, but two very special guest bloggers with us on Silhouette School. I'm handing over the reigns to my friends Becky and Glenna from My Paper Craze. They're gonna show us something I know a lot of you have been dying to know..how to cut craft foam with your Silhouette. I'll let this mother-daughter team take it from here!
Hi there! We're Becky and Glenna from My Paper Craze and we're honored to share a Silhouette tutorial with you today!
We love learning new crafts and tips from Silhouette School, so we thought we would take the time to share a tutorial of our own: HOW TO CUT CRAFT FOAM WITH A SILHOUETTE!
We love using craft foam for our kids' crafts, but it's always a hassle trying to make anything cute because you have to cut the designs by hand. I would say to myself, "I sure wish I could cut this with the Silhouette, it would be so much easier!" One day, I sat down one day and gave it a try. Craft foam is not a recommended medium for your Silhouette machine, so it was a trial and error coming up with custom settings that would work.
Finally, I decided on Speed: 1, Thickness: 33 and Blade: 10 to cut this 2mm craft foam. I did not use a double cut, it did not seem to make a difference. Your settings may vary based on the thickness and firmness of your craft foam, but these are a good starting point.
I kept getting discouraged because the craft foam just seemed to be too thick for the Silhouette, the blade wouldn't cut all the way through the foam. Finally, I sat down to cut my pieces out by hand, at least I had a cut line to guide my scissors. And that's when it happened... once I cut into the pattern of the design, I was able to pull my designs away from the rest of the foam sheet.
But I'll admit, I was still slightly discouraged. Who really wants to take the time to cut into each individual shape? This worked fine for small projects, but what if I wanted to do a big project with tons of shapes? There had to be a faster way.
So here's the messy part, you can't be afraid to shred a little foam. It will happen, especially at first, so cut extra designs into your foam to account for errors. But basically, using your thumb and fingers, you can push through the foam and pop it away from the sheet.
Once you break through the sheet at the cut line, you can continue to pull the shape away from the sheet, it should come rather willingly. Once you destroy the first few pieces, you really will get the hang of it. If this doesn't work for you, you can always go back to the scissor method.
So let's look at our pieces. They look a little messy, right? Well, don't despair! Much of this has to do with the way you tear the shapes from the foam. If you push up from the bottom, the tearing only happens to the back of the shape, which usually doesn't matter in your project. If any of the rough edges bother you, it can be cleaned up with your scissors. So here are my finished shapes, what do you think?
Pretty cute, right? So what am I doing with these beautiful turkey pieces, you ask? Here's a sneak peek of a Thanksgiving project I have planned for the kids. I'm so excited, I had to give it a try for myself....head on over to My Paper Craze to see exactly how we put this adorable turkey together..and for more awesome crafting ideas and tutorials.
A huge {THANK YOU} to Melissa for hosting our guest post today! We truly love the Silhouette School and all the wonderful tutorials she provides! Thanks to you, our reader, for giving us an opportunity today. Hope to see you again soon!
Be sure to follow Becky and Glenna
Thanks for coming to class today at Silhouette School. If you like what you see, I'd love for you to pin it!
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I am hoping someone is still checking this and might be able to help. I am trying this technique for a project, but one side of my mat keeps feeding faster than the other, causing the whole mat to get off kilter and not advancing properly. This makes my cuts not work AT ALL. (Cue sad music.) I am wondering if you (or anyone else) has had this problem and if/how you were able to fix it? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI have the exact same issue :(
DeleteI have same problem too, just trying to cut circles from plain craft foam. TOTAL NIGHTMARE!
DeleteI have tried this numerous times and can't seem to make it work. I even used a brand new blade. Anyone else have problems? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteJust gave this a try and it worked perfect. Yes, the edges are a little ragged like in the pictures above but I'm using mine as mixed media stamps so it doesn't even matter! I LOVE them. Thank you for posting this.
ReplyDeleteExactly- for stamps and printing plates this will be perfect (I used double cut, and speed 2- even better)
DeleteWe export craft foam for kids' crafts, in which are High quality , Nontoxic, Odorless and Formamide free EVA foam ,more details information :
ReplyDeleteCraft Eva Foam
Color Eva Foam
Thanks!
I bought my Cameo after being led to believe it would cut the 2mm craft foam. GROAN..I need to be able to cut FULL sheet of crosses for a ongoing church project... I tried the settings above and my mat fed through unevenly making a total mess. Does anyone have any ideas that will work or know of a machine that will work? I'm desperately in need of help...
ReplyDeleteour machine can cut it(eve foam) well,if you need to process you product,you can know moro about our machine,this our website http://www.hgcuttingsystems.com/
Deleteour machine can cut it(eve foam) well,if you need to process you product,you can know moro about our machine,this our website http://www.hgcuttingsystems.com/
ReplyDeleteFor mulitple shapes, I'm not certain, but try to set speed on 2, blade 10 and tick off for double cut. I think the edges will be a little ragged still, but without the double cut, I could not get this to work on my Silhouette (these are the settings I found on this blog for felt- that, however, did not work on my machine).
ReplyDelete