Chinese New Year Canvas | Karen Moss | Silhouette UK Blog

Chinese New Year Canvas | Silhouette Metallic Vinyl

This week we are using metallic vinyl for our projects and the theme is Chinese New Year.

The metallic vinyl I was sent was a gorgeous shiny red.

I decided to use it to make a canvas with the symbols for Live, Laugh and Love using a traditional black and red colour scheme.

I already had a canvas that measured 20 ins wide and 8 ins deep and prepped it by painting with black gesso – I find that priming a canvas this way makes the vinyl stick better.

I then downloaded my three symbols and resized them to 5.75ins.

I wanted to have my three symbols positioned in exactly the correct spot on my vinyl so started by:

1: changed my cutting mat to a 12 x 24 inch one
2: I then made my media size the length of my canvas and 12 ins wide
3: I changed the orientation of the media to landscape and the orientation of the view to portrait

I drew a rectangle the size of my canvas and added my three symbols.

I centred the ‘Laugh’ one and added the other two, either side, leaving a 1 in border on all sides.

I adhered my vinyl to a 12 x 24 Silhouette mat and loaded it into my machine.

I changed the cut settings to:
1: Vinyl Metalic
2: Passes 3 (I like to make sure that the vinyl has been cut through completely)
3: I turned in the function where the machine cuts a tiny overlap on each line – although it takes a little longer, this gives you a really clean cut.

I used a weeding tool to remove the excess vinyl and then placed a piece of transfer tape (very wide low tack plastic) onto my design – this enabled me to lift the vinyl symbols from the paper backing get a perfect placement on my canvas.

I am so pleased with the finished result and think that the red metallic vinyl looks gorgeous against the mat black of the canvas.

– Karen Moss –

• Design Used: Chinese Character Live
Design Store Artist: Loni Harris
Design Store ID: 6961 > Download

• Design Used: Chinese Character Laugh
Design Store Artist: Loni Harris
Design Store ID: 6962 > Download

• Design Used: Chinese Character Love
Design Store Artist: Loni Harris
Design Store ID: 6963 > Download