Layering and Outline Letters

This is one of my favorite pages this summer and the title isn't entirely true.

We like the Sea Shack.  Love it?  Well, I loved my lunch this year.  It's good.  I just don't love fried fish all that much.  Sometimes I have a craving. Lenny picked the Sea Shack this year.  The love title came from the Love Shack song which kept running through my head every time I worked on this page.

I used the page to talk a little about this restaurant and to catalog the other places we ate on the trip.  Hilton Head has over 300 restaurants according to Trip Advisor!  This includes fast food and coffee shops but there are many, many independently owned places on the island.  After over 20 years, I was amazed that we had never been to more than 1 of the top 10.  Our picks rank in the 30's and 40's and we thought they were great places.  So we have lots more to explore in coming trips.

Anyway, I do love the page because it uses one of my favorite paper pads from last year - Crate Paper's The Pier. I've been hoarding this and in keeping with this summer's theme, I'm putting it to good use.  Also, I really LOVE how the title came out on the Silhouette.

Now there may be other ways to do outline letters on the Silhoeutte.  I'm new to the machine so I don't know.  This is how I did mine.

1.  I typed my text "Sea Shack" and picked the font I wanted which is AR Christy.  That must have come with Windows 8 as it is new to me.
2.  Then I adjusted the spacing between the letters.  This is the Character Spacing option on the Text Style box that comes up when typing.
3.  Using the Offset window, I added the default .125" offset which creates a shadow around the letters.  Normally this is way too much offset for me.  Also this creates a separate layer so I usually move the offset letters away from the regular letters and cut them with two different pieces of paper.
In this case, I just left everything where it was and cut.

The machine cuts the outside and the inside of the letters leaving you with an outline.  You could adjust the amount of offset to get a thicker or thinner outline.  Step 2 is necessary so the letters don't overlap and you end up with letters all cut together.

This is all in the process video at YouTube:


I didn't create a sketch for this one ahead of time as I was just playing with the design as I went.  Another fun thing on the page are the vellum die cuts.  They are also Crate Paper but this year's Maggie Holmes line.

If you like sketches, the sketchbook for 2013 is still available here.  If you like 6x6 paper pads, the Scrapinar I did last year is found via the link in my sidebar.  We explored lots of different pages in the hour long Scrapinar.  

Thanks for visiting!