Create Your Own Stationery

Hello! I have to share one of my favorite new sites to visit – Creative Market. It’s such a happy resource for finding great graphic elements from talented designers. There are weekly deals (yep and free stuff too!), templates and fonts (swoon!). Affordable too – like the little set of vintage floral goodies I just purchased from the very talented Mia Charro. Now I can play designer too! Let’s have some fun together and make some notecards. I like the postcard format – it’s flat and easy to make. Want to create your own stationery too?

The What

Silhouette cutting machine
Silhouette Studio
Blade
Cutting Mat
Cardstock (I used a light cream)
If you are not using the Silhouette to cut your cards, you’ll need scissors or a craft knife and ruler
Graphic Elements (like my new vintage flowers)
Color Printer

The How

Step 1 – Create a new document in Studio and Merge your graphic elements (File>Merge) onto your new document

Step 2 – Trace the items you want to include on your card. Let me explain first – this step will allow us to crop the shapes, so that we can move them as individual pieces (as opposed to a big rectangle of images – clear as mud? Stick with me…)

Step 2a – Select the Trace tool and select the trace area (your images). De-select the High Pass option and move the Threshold slider to 100% – this will completely fill your images

Step 2b – Select Trace Outer Edge – don’t move a thing!

Step 3 – Select all your images again and be sure to include the traced images. Now, go to Object>Modify>Crop. Your images are now separated.

Step 4: Now create your card. I like to use the rounded square shape. For my design, I used a polka-dot fill and set the transparency to 50% (in the Advanced Options)