Silhouette Studio Tutorial: How to make Gift Tags using Print-and-Cut

By now you would probably have seen the new Nancy Happy Holiday sets on the Lettering Delights website. I couldn't have been more happy when I saw the sets. Nancy Kubo is one of my favorite designers and her Create-A-Critter cartridge is the only reason why I still have my Cricut Expression in my house. Well, and that my kids wanted me to keep the cutter. Anyway.....with Nancy's designs now available on the Lettering Delights site, it really feels like it's a dream come true!!  I'm not going to get all sappy about it but I'm really overjoyed that what I had once fantasized about has now become a reality. 

As the MTC plug-in for the Cameo was released when I was away on vacation, I really haven't had time to play with it yet. At the moment I am really liking the print-and-cut capability of the Silhouette Studio with the Silhouette Cameo and so for today's tutorial, that is exactly what I am going to use. 

To make the tags, I used the Lettering Delights' Nancy Happy Holiday GRAPHIC set but you can also use the SVG from the Nancy Happy Holiday CUT IT set.

The font that I used for the label is LD Little Piggy.

Here is the video tutorial and if you prefer the written instructions, just keep scrolling down. ;-)

1. Using the rectangle tool, draw a 2.5" x 4.5" rectangle.

2. 

File>Merge and open the nan_01.png file if you are using the GRAPHIC set. Use the Nancys_Holidays-01.svg file if you are using the CUT IT set.

Lock the Aspect Ratio and set the width to 2". 

Position the bear inside the rectangle.

3. Make a quick trace of the Bear by unchecking High Pass Filter and at 100% Threshold.  If you are using the svg from the Cut It set, you can skip this step. 

4. Draw a rounded-corner rectangle and set the size to 2" by 1.2"

5. Make a shadow layer of the rounded rectangle and the bear by using the Offset tool. 

6. To remove the "hole" in the middle of the tag, just right-click and select Release Compound Path.

  
Select and delete away the "hole".

7. With the rounded-corner rectangle selected, click on the Rhinestones tool button. 

Select Edge for the Rhinestone Effect and reduce the Rhinestone Spacing to 0.10mm.

8. Fill the rhinestone circles with red using the Fill Color tool.

9. Add text to the label using the LD Little Piggy font and at a font size of 14 pt.

10.  Fill the letters with black....

..... and delete away the rectangle from Step 1.

11. To make a tab for the gift tag so that a ribbon or twine can string through, draw two circles. Place the smaller circle inside the larger.

12. Weld the larger circle to the gift tag.

13. Using the Line Color tool, change the line color of the gift tag and ribbon/twine hole to grey. Change all other outlines to transparent.

14. Open the Cut Style window and set all the cut lines to NO CUT except for the gift tag and the ribbon/twine hole.

15. Now the gift tag is ready for print-and-cut!

16. Maximize your cardstock by filling the page with the gift tags!

17. If you are using the SVG and prefer to cut out and layer the bear, just move the bear to outside the virtual mat so that it does not get printed.

Here is a tag that I made with the SVG:

These tags are really fun to make! Use the Nancy Happy Holiday set to make different designs to use as gift tags.

Christmas is but a few days away and I hope that today's tutorial will help when you run out of gift tags. Late at night. When all the stores are closed. :-P

IMPORTANT: 

If you find this tutorial helpful, please click the LIKE button below or leave a comment. Your feedback helps me decide if I should continue posting these types of tutorials. Let me know if they are too simple or long-winded or if I should cut down on the details. Also, please let me know if it is necessary to have both written and video tutorials. Should I just post the video? 

Thanks!

UPDATE: I just realize that I didn't include the instruction for making the larger green base. 

To make it, just do an offset of the gift tag. Set the Offset distance to about 0.12". When cutting, "switch on" the cut lines for it and the twine/ribbon hole.