Mini Doe and Ben

I bought a Silhouette Cameo with the intention of using it for my invitations. I did not know how yet but I wanted to use it. Do your research before you purchase. Amazon had a bunch of different "kits" and packages. Some were worth the money and some were cheaper if you buy everything separately.

Anyway, there are limitations to this printer so do all your research first!

First, it is NOT a laser cutting printer! Do NOT expect very detailed, elaborate cuts like these:

 

After coming to terms with that (and many many failed projects), I decided I needed to do a more simple cut. After feeling defeated for a while, I suddenly had the idea to make mini Doe and Ben. I had to plan out each shape that I would need:

• Ben's Skin
• Ben's Hair
• Ben's Hat
• Ben's Shirt
• Ben's Pants
• Ben's Shoes
• Doe's Skin
• Doe's Hair
• Doe's Shirt
• Doe's pants
• Bench

I purchased all my paper from LCI Paper. I like this company because you can buy samples instead of having to commit to a package of 25 or 50. This is a great way to test out the thickness of your paper as well as making sure it's the color you want.

I printed our faces on the skin paper first. You need to plan this out with photoshop and then the Silhouette Cameo software.

Then you'll have to recreate your shapes in the Silhouette Cameo program for the other shapes (hair, shirts, pants). There are lots of tutorials online if you need help.

Before I cut the final pieces, I test printed on normal paper. This is the results after coloring it in.

Ben couldn't stop laughing because of how goofy his face looked but I was just doodling really quick. This was a test print/cut anyway! =[

(If you noticed... I changed Ben's pants shape because I thought this one looked weird. And I gave him shoes because Ben complained that he didn't have any shoes)

If possible, order extra paper for any mistakes or errors. Being the genius that I am, I resized my shapes and saved it in a 2nd folder. Then I proceeded to cut out the skin paper and took a break. After my break (of a couple of weeks), I cut out the other shapes FROM THE WRONG FOLDER. Both of our pants were too small. Luckily I caught my error before cutting all the paper but it meant I had to reorder blue paper for pants.

Based on the thickness of your paper, you'll want to adjust the blade number AND the setting on the Silhouette Cameo program. Sometimes, you might want to run it twice so that you definitely get the clean cut.

Here's a cutout of my hair..

The assembling wasn't hard since I did it while watching TV.

Here's the final product after using some tacky glue, twine and a white pen.

Afterwards, I purchased a stock photo to help design my invitation, punched holes and attached. 

This invitation was "too thick" so I had to pay an extra $0.15 on top of my wedding stamp ($0.70 each) per invitation...  The invitations were a huge hit though so I guess it was worth it.

Here's a quick video of the assembly: