Acetate in the Silhouette CAMEO
I have a new favorite medium to work with in the Silhouette machine! I got a great tip from a friend on the Silhouette Plus forum and bought a pack of clear plastic presentation covers. They are letter-sized clear plastic sheets used for binding as a cover onto presentations. I bought these from Amazon.com, but you can probably also find them at your local office supply store.
According to my sources, the thickness is 7 mil. My CAMEO cut them with ease using a heavy cardstock setting (blade 3, speed 3, force 33). If your blade has trouble cutting this, then you can opt for 2 passes.
I cut these snowflake backgrounds for my Christmas cards (see this post) and absolutely love how they turned out! The weeding took some time because I had to pop out every single hole using a paper piercer or an exacto knife for the fine point, but they did pop out easily. I don’t recommend such an intricate design unless you are willing to spend some time on it, but I was extremely impressed with how the plastic behaved. In all of those tiny details, for all 19 of those card fronts I punched out, I only had a few breaks. And creases did not show stress marks, so even the little breaks here and there are hard to see.
Next time I’m trying something 3D, like boxes. I’m really looking forward to working with these sheets some more!
Check out these plastic box projects I cut with my Silhouette machine here, here, and here, using these same plastic sheets.
Great idea! I'm anxious to try it too…
I have cut acetate with my Sadie. Here's a pix that I took of the ones I cut. I SHOULD have done a double cut, but this was one of the very first projects I did with Sadie.
http://tinyurl.com/acetate-butterflies
Those are great, Jann. I like the patterns on the acetate. I should try some stamping or coloring on these sheets, too.
Hi Kelly, I found you through the Silhoeutte Mchine Flickr group, but I think I recognize you from 2Peas. Are these acetate sheets thick enough that you could use them as pages in a mini album? Did cutting this dull your blade?
Diane, I'm not on 2Peas very often, so it's probably another Kelly you're thinking of. These sheets are pretty thin, although their purpose is for a clear page on top of a bound presentation. They'd probably be O.K. in a mini album, depending on what you do with them. That's a good thought; I'll have to try it sometime.
It's hard to say how much it dulled my blade when cutting. I cut five full 8.5×11" pages (with a LOT of cuts each) and it wasn't cutting as well by the 5th page as it started out. So there was a noticeable difference, but I was already using the same blade I've had for a while and I'm confident that slightly increasing the pressure/thickness would have helped cut all the way through again. I doubt it's any harder on the blade than heavy cardstock.
Gorgeous.
I have cut thicker transparencies on my Silhouette SD. but I also have a Cameo blade in it and I use a Cameo mat cut down. 🙂 This is really cool though. I will have to try the thicker acetate now.
hi – gorgeous design. question about your acetate – does it have a paper backing or is it totally clear? i'm trying to do print and cuts with my cameo on clear transparency film and it's having trouble reading the registration marks. i haven't tried a straight print yet, but your project gives me hope for that!
This acetate is completely clear, but I'm not doing print & cuts with it. I suggest printing registration marks on a piece of white paper, cutting out those corners, and temporarily adhering them on top of the clear transparency film. Or you could try attaching white paper squares under the registration mark corners of your transparency just to give the machine a better chance of reading them. Good luck!
Thanks, i'll try just the corners next time. i tried to line the entire page, but didn't secure it well enough, and had it slide on the last cut. it didn't cut all the way through either, so i need to check my settings.
i used a laminating sheet pouch which is soft before laminating then spray adhesived pouch closed next –picked vinyl setting and double cut on silhouette sd–it cut perfectly! then I ran the intricate cut design through my laminator via paper carrier and it came out rigid, perfect and I can hang my chandalier silhoutte rigid creation out in the garden after i spray paint and add glitter 🙂 it waterproof and because of the spray paint sunproof mostly
What a clever idea! Thanks for sharing. I'd love to see a picture if you have a link. 🙂
I was looking for the settings to cut acetate, and found your post. I have been sitting here and done about 5 cuts but it still wasn't right. Now I know. Thanks. 🙂
Would clear transparency film (for the overhead projector) work doing this project?
I think the overhead transparency film might be a little thinner than this plastic I used, but with the right settings I think it would work just fine.
Thank you for the registration mark tip. The little squares of white paper did the trick!
Glad to hear it, Judy!
Printing and cutting out registration marks is needlessly silly. All you have to do is tape a white sheet of paper to the back of your cutting mat.