Valentine's Day is just around the corner. It's not normally a holiday that I'm over the top excited about celebrating. It's usually just a blip on the calendar in the middle of February for me but I do like to give those around me something special to show them how much I love them. I love the reusable Starbucks cups that you can purchase at any Starbucks store for only $2. You know if you bring in your own cup to use for coffee that you get ten cents off your coffee? Yep. Every penny counts. These mugs do double duty. Not only do they make an adorable customized cup, they are also a great gift to give. You can tuck in some candy or a gift card and it makes the perfect gift at any price range. If you don't want to give a custom coffee cup, you could give some EOS lip balm. Or give them both! I'm showing you how you can take a grouped image in your Silhouette file and ungroup it to use shapes that you want. It makes every Silhouette file that much more versatile. But really, I'm showing you how you can cut vinyl to make a small sticker so you can customize just about anything, even these cheap reusable Starbucks cups.
How to Ungroup a Shape in Silhouette
If you aren't checking out the Silhouette Store once a week, you are missing out. Each week there is a new shape that is free to download. You can sometimes find multiple files for free to download if you are lucky. You never know if you aren't checking! I think that I have purchased only a handful Silhouette files in the six years that I have owned the machine and yet I have 500+ shapes in my library.
Sometimes the shapes that are available for download are layered images. I may not want to use the whole file, but there may be a design element of the file that I do. That's where this trick comes in handy. It makes using the shapes that much more versatile.
Go to your library and search through your images for the one you want. I know there is a more organized way to this, but for me, I keep my eyes peeled for design elements that I can use. Maybe I'm making a bookmark or a card and while the design that comes with it isn't appropriate for what I am doing but the shape is. That's what you are looking for.
In this case, I needed a file with hearts. I was looking for something that looked more sketched out and free-hand rather than something that looked like the traditional heart. I found that in a card. I only wanted to use the hearts so I clicked on the image and it opened up in my Silhouette studio design software. Now you are ready to work.
Next click the image so it's in the box. Then go to object and the drop down you are looking for is ungroup. This ungroup feature will start to ungroup various pieces of the design, putting them into boxes. I simply click on the ones that I don't need and delete them until I'm left with the design that I do want. Now you can use the design however you want.
I took it one step further and only wanted the hearts on the right, so once I had deleted all of the other design elements, I ungrouped those hearts again. Now, you can start replicating that image and filling a page that you want to cut.
For me, I wanted to cut the hearts out in vinyl. Check out this post for more help on how to cut vinyl with your Silhouette. When you work with a design as small as this, I simply used the cut design like a sticker. Well, minus my name. I used Magnolia Sky font and used the weld feature {object, modify, weld} to make the letters of my name attach so they were easy to cut. and since the design was cut so small and I needed it to stay together, so I used transfer tape for that. Other than that, have fun with this!
I created a random pattern on my cup alternating between my silver and pink hearts.
Don't forget to add the name to make it even more customized.
It's a fun gift to give, or make one for yourself!
Have you ever tried to ungroup shapes? It's going to rock your world my friends!
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