Every month Silhouette gives Elite Affiliates a special sale that is available with their codes. The sales usually last from the 1st – 15th. There are always some great bundles of machines and products. This month they are celebrating Christmas in July. There are several Cameo 4 Bundle, some media bundles, an Advent Calendar project, and 20% off lots of supplies.
While my 1st choice of Silhouette machine is the Curio, the Cameo 4 is also a good machine with a lot of new bells and whistles. They have changed the right hand tool holder to run on a different, more powerful drive. There is a new rotary blade and kraft blades that offer more usage of thicker media. The Cameo 4 has a built in roll feeder so that you can make banners or other long projects.
Lately I have been using the rotary blade to cut heavy crepe paper to make flowers. I am using Lia Griffith’s book, videos, and products to make the flowers. It is a fun distraction from all that is happening in the world. I’m not as motivated to work with clay right now, so learning a new craft is stimulating. https://magsbonham.com/coping/
I recently received the new Chomas Creations engraving tool for the Cameo 4. I was a bit skeptical that I would get a good engraving on the Cameo 4. But, I was pleasantly surprised. First I cut a jig from cardboard. This would help hold the aluminum bracelet blank in place while being engraved. I used Sketch for the Action and Sketch pen for the tool. I did several passes to get the deep engraving that will hold color from alcohol ink or Sharpie markers. You can see my methods for engraving on the Curio in my video: http://bit.ly/2NHT6z1. (For the Chomas tools I usually just do the first 2 Aluminum settings.)
It was just a quick test. I will do more work on it later. The downside that I found was that I couldn’t reuse the jig to engrave another bracelet. I could not get it to line up correctly. It could be ‘user error’, so I will try again and update. However, you could cut more spaces in the jig to do more than one at a time. You can purchase the tool at Chomas Creations online or from my Etsy shop. (please note that using 3rd party tools in your new machine may void your warranty)
What crafts are you doing with the extra downtime we are experiencing with the pandemic? Are you learning any new crafts? If you are looking to branch out, there are lots of great classes coming up on Craftcast.com. There are plenty of classes using the Silhouette machines and all kinds of other mediums as well. To help both customers and instructors, Alison is offering 30% of all classes. And there are a lot of freebies as well. Craft Shows and in-person classes have been cancelled for the year pretty much everywhere. So this helps those of us that participated in those venues for income.
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