Valentine Hugs and Kisses Canning Jar Craft

The challenge this month over at The Silhouette Challenge facebook group is print and cut. I love print and cut! Plus I want to make some goodies for my girls for Valentine’s Day – so bonus!

Here is what I came up with for my project (the rest of the challenge projects are linked at the end of this post):

For this project, I used the following:

Love In a Jar Templates and Cutting Files

Love In a Jar Stamp Images

Me,Myself and I digital kit

Me, Myself and I tone on tone digital paper

Printer (and presentation paper for printing)
Cardstock for the base
Digital die cutting machine
Adhesive
Quart canning jar with lid
2 bags of Hershey hug and kisses candy

I followed the procedure in this post to create my print and cut PNG from the templates included in the cutting file set. This allowed me to use the digital papers and elements, without printing whole sheets and wasting printer ink.

My final PNG looked like this. You can see I have my front and back panels, my side panels and my properly sized decorative elements all there. I used the decorative labels stamps and added some text to customize the tags. I added the digital papers just like described in the blog post linked above.

This PNG is bigger than the printing area when I turn on the registration marks in my Silhouette studio software. The way to fix that is to just slice the PNG into pieces that fit into the cut area. I just use my straight knife blade in the software to slice it up. Then slide the pieces you want to print and cut first into the window and push the others aside. (I find it easier than making a bunch of smaller files).

Layer the cut file lines from the cutting file set over the images and send to print and them cut. Don’t forget to check and make sure the cut line thickness is zero so the lines do not print on your project.

I want to add some scrapbook kit flowers as pop-up decoration – so I need to trace those before I cut them. I cover the element with the trace area box, shut off the high pass filter, and adjust the threshold until I get a solid image. Then just trace the edge.

I like to do my print and cuts using matte presentation paper because the printouts come out nice and bright.

I cut my canning jar sleeve base out of cardstock using the cutting files and then layered all the decorative elements I print and cut on it. Add some hugs and kisses and your done. Save your project as a Silhouette Studio file and you can make more of them whenever you like.

Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?

My Silhouette Challenge buddies and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so peruse the projects below for a wealth of Silhouette inspiration!