Findingnana

Just a few days ago I posted a die cut on my Instagram feed which was cut out using my Silhouette Cameo and some people asked how do I weld the letters and what kind of fonts I used.

Some of you who own a Cameo or even Portrait may well be familiar with the welding tool but in case you don’t, I’ll be sharing a simple step-by-step tutorial for those who wants to learn the use of the weld tool. I learned this from watching video tut from YouTube, so in case you want to watch video to help you understand better, you can pop over and search tons of great tuts.

My tutorial is going to be lengthy with lots of print screen images to show you each step of welding letters. So, grab a cup of coffee to help you stay awake!

Before you start, you need to download the fonts that I used for cutting the words above the picture shown.

For the word “hello”, I used Lavanderia which you can download from here. For this font, you need to pay a minimum sum of at least $5 to download it. I paid for mine because I like the font very much and I use it very often.

And for the word “MARCH“, I used NeoRetroDraw, which is free for download here.

So, once you’ve downloaded the fonts, or you decide to use any available fonts in your Silhouette Studio, we’re ready to start!

Here’s how the welded letters of my cut looks like in Silhouette Studio.

So, we’re going to start off by opening a new blank canvas/file.

Next step would be to add text to the canvas. Select Lavanderia Sturdy font for the word “hello” in lower case in desired text size (You can resize this later). Keep the character spacing at 100% as it is. The letters are overlapping each other nicely to weld together later.

Next, create the text “January” in upper case letters on a separate space using NewRetroDraw Bold font.

To reduce the character spacing between each letter so that they overlap each other for welding, slide it to the left or the down arrow to reduce the % of the space.

Please take note that if you reduce the character spacing too much, the letters will be cramped together too tightly and the end result of the welding will not look too nice.

If you notice, the letter “J” is still separated from the letter “A” unlike the rest of the letters that are overlapping each other. We’ll come back to that later on how to overlap them together manually.

Move the “January” word closer to the “hello” word so that they’re overlapping each other slightly. Adjust to your desired position.

Then, hold the “shift” key down and use your mouse to select both words to select/highlight them together.

Next, click on the weld tool at the bottom of the tool bar to weld both words into one shape.

Now you can see both words are welded except for the letter “J”.

Click on the letter “J” and move it manually to overlap slightly with the letter “A”.

Select/highlight both welded word shape and letter “J” and select weld tool from the tool bar at the bottom to make the complete welding into one shape.

There, can you see the picture below that both words are now welded into one shape? I hope you’re still with me.

Now, I like to remove some of the editing points along the trace line or within it. Some of them are too tiny to be included in the cutting or some you would just like to remove just to make the welded shape looks better. OK, maybe I’m just too OCD about it but if it’s bothering me or their not being “useful” then why not remove them right? *laugh*

So, double click on the welded shape/text and you’ll see many points appear on the text/shape.

Click your mouse on the point that you want to remove like I circled it (the tiny box will turn from grey to white on the inside) and then click your mouse on the “Delete Point” on the Point Editing option on the right side bar. Keep deleting the points until it completely remove the points you want to get rid off.

Remember when to stop or you’ll accidentally delete part of the trace line of the shape as well.

Once you’re happy deleting the editing points, just click your mouse on any empty space outside the shape and you’re done!

You’re now ready to cut the word/shape and use them on your projects!

I hope this tutorial is easy to follow.

For those of you who would like them ready made, or you’re just too busy to try them out, I’ve made them all in 12 months. So you can download them HERE for free. The files are in Silhouette Studio format, all 12 months’ cuts are in there. You can resize or do whatever you want with them. Not necessary to credit me.

Have a great week ahead!

Lotsa love – Leena