Merry Christmas Ornaments

Remember my early Christmas present?  Well, here it is--my first finished made-with-my-new-Silhouette project.  (Thanks again, hubby!)

Custom Christmas Ornaments!

This was such an easy project, and I love how it turned out!  In Photoshop, I made an 8 1/2" x 11" design filled with the words "Merry Christmas 2011" plus lots of snowflakes.  (Any image-editing program would work.)  Then I saved it as a jpg.

Then I opened the file in the Silhouette software...

Selected the Trace option, highlighted the entire design, and clicked "Trace" (which I forgot to circle, but you can find it)...

Then I saved this to my SD card, took it to my Silhouette machine, loaded my vinyl, and let the machine do its thing.

It took maybe fifteen minutes to cut out all those shapes!  (I didn't watch the clock, but it was going for a long time.)

Then all I had to do was peel the letters (and numbers, and snowflakes)  off their backing, and stick them on the ornaments I'd bought at the grocery store.  

I've already given one to my in-laws, one's on my Christmas tree, I have one for this ornament exchange I'm going to in a couple weeks--talk about an easy homemade Christmas present!

PS  You can buy vinyl from Silhouette's store, but I just got mine from Lowe's--just ask for the contact paper.  I haven't used Silhouette's vinyl; maybe it's nicer, but this vinyl I got worked well and cost almost nothing.

Happy Crafting!