Printing on Vellum / Sewn Vellum Shapes

So, last night I was working on my Project Life album and I really wanted a couple of vellum shapes to coordinate and finish things off.

I’ve seen the sewn ones around lately and think they are really cute, even though a little on the expensive side, so I thought - why not make them myself?

Since I wanted to have different colors and patterns, I used Inkjet Vellum (I used the Strathmore Translucent Vellum.)

 

 

 

There are two ways you can go about this. With or without a craft cutter!

I did it with my craft cutter, so I will show you that, but know that you can just as easily print out a variety of colors and patterns on your inkjet vellum paper and then either cut by hand or use craft punches to cut your shapes!

 

My first step was to create a print and cut file in my Silhouette studio.

 

I used some digital papers as patterns, used a few fill colors to try different things. The labels on the right are by Evalicious.

Then I printed it on the vellum, put it on the cutting mat and proceeded to cut it in the Silhouette Craft Cutter.

 

 

Nothing too complicated going on here! And that’s just the thing. Customized vellum shapes and embellishments are SO easy to make!

Anyway, here are all the shapes after I peeled them off the cutting mat.

 

 

And now it was just a matter of stitching a few of them together on the sewing machine. Depending on the size, that can be a little fiddly, but I found that securing the shapes together with a Micro Glue Dot, really made that a lot easier.

 

 

Just run a straight stitch over it, cut off the ends, and voila, you are done!

 

 

It didn’t take long at all and I love that I could customize patterns and colors! This was just a test run, and as you can see, some colors and patterns worked better than others, but I think I might take some time this weekend and branch out a bit into different shapes, colors and stitches! It really didn’t take very long to do!

 

And don’t forget, you don’t need a craft cutter to do this - just use your printer for the colors and patterns, then use crafts punches for the shapes! Or you can stamp on regular vellum with, for example StazOn inkpad ( it has to be an inkpad for every surface, so it doesn’t smudge) and cut shapes either by hand or punch them out. Works just as well!

 

 

The above is stamped with the blazing red StazOn Ink Pad. Very vibrant!

 

 

 

 

 

And for all of us who love to know how much they save by doing it ourselves, here’s the break down:

The pack of Strathmore Translucent Vellum was $10, so at 20 sheets, that is 50 cents per sheet.

It’s hard to guestimate how much the ink would cost for me to print a sheet of paper, but going by prices for having a sheet printed commercially, let’s put it at 25 cents.

Depending on size, you can probably get 20 plus sewn vellum embellishments out of one sheet of vellum. I suspect a lot more, but let’s stay on the conservative end.

So, 20 sewn embellishments and about an hour of your time =  $0.75

8 sewn vellum embellishments currently being sold in scrapbooking stores, run around $3-$4. So let’s split the difference and say $3.50 for 8. If you bought 20,  that would be $17.50!