Best Fonts for Small Silhouette CAMEO Cuts: Mini Farmhouse Rolling Pins

When you're finding the perfect font for your next Silhouette project there are a couple of things you should consider - one of them is the size the font will be cut at!

Not every font will work for every project and you'll have a lot better luck if you know what to look for...and what to avoid. 

If you're like me and you're an "all farmhouse, all the time" kind of home decorator then you may be wanting to customize some of these adorable mini rolling pins. The only problem is -they're tiny..which means we need a font that works well when cut really small. 

Thick, bold fonts are perfect for this. The reason is when you are cutting with your Silhouette the blade has to create the outline of the letter. The more narrow the letter is, the closer the blade passes over the same area in the opposite direction. This isn't a problem at a larger scale, but when font size is really small it means the blade is almost passing in the exact same area twice (indicated by the two arrows) which causes the vinyl to tear or peel up. 

Bolder fonts help prevent this naturally - by avoiding the blade from being in that same area twice simply due to the thickness of the font itself.  Fortunately the Crafters Font Bundle from So Fontsy has a lot of fonts thicker fonts that are designed to cut well at all sizes! 

I started by painting these rolling pins and then set them to dry while I worked on cutting the vinyl letters. 

Measure Rolling Pins

Next, use a ruler or measuring tape to take note of the length and width of the "working area" of the rolling pin (the part where you want to apply your vinyl).  In this case, our font can't be more than 0.5" tall and 1.5" wide.  

I found the perfect bold farmhouse-y font in So Fontsy's Crafters Font Bundle - it's even called "Farmland Font". Even at this small size it's substantial enough that it can easily be cut, weeded, and transferred.  

Design in Silhouette Studio

Now that you know how small your font has to be use the Text Tool and Text Style panel in Silhouette Studio to select your font and type the word or words for your rolling pins. 

Then, resize the text to fit within the measurements you took earlier.

To make sure your text size is accurate, check out this blog post about how to accurately measure text size in Silhouette Studio.

In the picture below, you can see how both of the selected text boxes state a height of 0.500 inches - yet clearly the text on the right is bigger than the text on the left. Check out those blog posts mentioned above to get accurate text size!

Cut, Weed, and Transfer Tape

Use your Silhouette CAMEO or Portrait to cut out your text in permanent adhesive vinyl, like Oracal 651. Next, weed out the excess vinyl.

Then, transfer the vinyl onto transfer tape. To help while you're applying the vinyl to the rolling pin, you may want to set a towel on your workspace with the rolling pin on top. This helps to keep the rolling pin from rolling around while you're applying the vinyl.

You could use the hinge method to apply the vinyl decal, or you can just "eyeball it." If you choose the latter, start by hovering the transfer tape right above the rolling pin exactly where you want it to be applied. 

Then, lightly press just the middle of the vinyl decal onto the rolling pin.

Burnish the decal starting from the middle and out towards the edges.

Remove the transfer tape and burnish the vinyl again.

Lastly, add a bow with ribbon or baker's twine to finish it off.  

These rolling pins are super cute gift ideas, except that you'll want to keep them all for yourself!

Find the font used on these rolling pins in the Crafter's Font Bundle at So Fontsy.

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. By clicking on them and purchasing products through my links, I receive a small commission. That's what helps fund Silhouette School so I can keep buying new Silhouette-related products to show you how to get the most out of your machine!

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