Silhouette Cameo: Overall Impressions

It’s taken me a while to recoup from my Cricut series, but I wanted to come back and do an overview on the Silhouette.  I can’t really do a first impressions post since I’ve had my machine since August now, but I can give my overall impressions.

Linen Background by http://www.greatvectors.com

First off, let me say that I love my silhouette.  It’s been my go to tool for crafting.  Personally, I feel like my blog has been too much Silhouette as of late, but there are only so many hours in a day.  No worries though, I’ll be putting up some material this week that does not rely on the silhouette!  The thing is, I’m a paper crafter at heart.  Earl and I have a bit of a tradition where we make our own Christmas cards every year, and while that’s the first thing that comes to mind, it’s not the only thing we do with paper crafting.  I also looked at the Cameo and thought “That would have saved me so much time when we got married!”  (More on that in a another blog post.)

I also love to sew.  And to be truthful, I was really hoping I could use the machine to cut out patterns.  I’ve made some fabric bowls, but really haven’t found an economical way to do this yet.  For most fabrics, you need to back it with a heavy stabilizer.  I don’t really want a permanent interfacing, and everything I’ve tried that works well is just too darn expensive.  I have tried freezer paper backing and starch spray, but haven’t gotten a consistent enough result to be willing to trust my fabrics to it yet.  I have, however, started cutting out my .pdf patterns using the silhouette, which means much less taped paper (and thus patterns that keep better).

Having the silhouette has also expanded my crafting world to include things I hadn’t worked with before.  I’ve made several custom stencils for glass etching and fabric paint, and I’ve even dabbled a bit in HTV.  Vinyl is a material I had never really thought to work in before, so that’s been a refreshing addition to my crafts.

On the software end of things, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the versatility of the design capabilities.  I usually do most of my design work in Photoshop, but the process moving from Photoshop to Studio has been pretty successful.  This includes both designing in Photoshop to export to Studio as well as doing more and more work within the Studio environment itself.  The ability to point edit and trace has been instrumental for working with projects like the Dominion card box.

So where does that leave me in terms of my impressions of the Silhouette Cameo?  I’m sitting pretty.  I enjoy a lot of the functionality of the software, and love the versatility of being able to cut out my own custom shapes.  Plus, using the machine has expanded my ability to work with a variety of materials I hadn’t thought to work with before.  Ok, I think that’s enough for overall impressions.  Next up in the series will be a discussion of the machine and it’s features.  I’ll try to write these pretty close together, but can’t promise you that they’ll be one a day like last time.  See you soon!

This post is part of a series.  Go ahead and click on one of the links below, you know you want to!
Silhouette Cameo: First Impressions <– You’re here!
Silhouette Cameo: The Machine {Coming Soon!}
Silhouette Cameo: Studio {Coming Soon!}
Silhouette Cameo: Design Studio {Coming Soon!}
Silhouette Cameo: Design Studio v 3.0 {Coming Soon!}
Silhouette Cameo: Cutting Materials {Coming Soon!}
Silhouette Cameo: Conclusions {Coming Soon!}

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