Sizzix Eclips & eCAL Dress up Studio #309

By Cbdesigns @cherylboglioli

My studio mates and myself wanted to dress up our studio door a bit as well as announce that we were ‘in the house’!   I offered to create some vinyl lettering for our door.

I’ve been using my Sizzix Eclips more and have to say I love this machine the more I use it.  It cuts perfectly every time.   Cutting vinyl was a breeze.   Each of us wanted to use our own personalized font.   This was so easy using eCAL.  I typed in each name and welded them together.  I then sized all three together to be centered and fit on a 12×24 mat.  One note here:  When working with script fonts, I recommend you BOLD them and do a test cut as some scripts are super fine in the loops and do not cut well unless HUGE.  I then took my laptop over to my Eclips, plugged it in, and told eCAL to cut!  When using the Eclips with or without eCAL, I love that I can choose the material I am using with a drop down menu and the software figures out my speed and pressure settings.   I did turn my blade down to a ‘2’ to make sure I got a ‘KISS’ cut for the vinyl.

Once it was cut, I use a small pick tool to ‘weed’ the vinyl (remove all the inner loops and then negative space).  I admit I still favor my CGull tool set for working with die cuts.  The have a greater assortment of pics and spatulas so that I can work in tight spaces.

After the piece was weeded, I placed my transfer paper over it.  You can see in the photo above that I’ve already put the transfer paper over the “Studio #309” sign (that is why it looks muted).  This made for easy transport up to the studio building.  After removing the backing, I was able to center these two pieces where I wanted.  I rubbed them with my squeegee and started peeling off the transfer paper.  I have found that if I continue to rub with my squeegee and peel the paper off at an angle diagonally, it comes off easier.

TaDA!  Personalized studio door.  (Excuse the bad picture – using phone to take photo and wall was preventing me from getting a straight on shot)  We still hope to put a window in our door at some point.  When that happens, I appreciate that the vinyl lettering is removable and repositionable.  I might change the vinyl to white if we get a window, but that will be super easy to do.  I have a great stash of vinyl from Expressions Vinyl.  I have the eCAL file saved from this project, so even though I may have to resize it to fit the window, all I’ll really need to do is add vinyl to my mat and cut!

Thanks for stopping by,