Basic Design Tutorial. Make Gift Tags.

Today I”ve got a Basic Design Tutorial for Beginner Designers in Silhouette Studio. How to make your own Gift Tags. It really is as easy as the picture below. We’ll make use of the Drawing Shapes Tool, The Alignment Tool and the Weld Tool.

My example below shows the steps to take. I used the “Draw a Rounded Rectangle” Tool for this demo but as you’ll see later, any shapes can be used.

Draw overlapping shapes. I’ve used 3 although 2 would be fine as would 3 or 4.
Select them all and from the Align tools > Align Horizontal > Center.
With each shape still selected > Right Click and > Weld
Now add the small circle/oval at the top. Align As before.
Select both the tag and the “hole” Right Click > Make a Compound Path.

That’s the basics done and dusted – Now I’ll show you how to make an optional offset for a contrast backing/border.

Select the Tag and open the Offset window.
Select Offset – it will default to a suggested size. Use the Distance Slider to alter the size to make the Border Thinner or Wider as desired.
Draw a small circle or oval over the top of the tag, so it matches the original hole size.
Select and slide the original tag out the the way.
Select the New offset tag and the new hole and Right Click > Make Compound path.
Select both the tag and the offset and align “Center” both horizontally & Vertically. The two holes and tags should align.

Here’s a few examples of possible tags using various shapes mixed and matched.

Troubleshooting…..

This may not happen, {it all depends on the size of the hole and the offset size you select} but, if you encounter a small extra hole in the offset copy of the tag here’s how to fix it.

Ignore it. The machine will cut the extra hole but it won’t matter as it’s in a part of the design that will be weeded out.
Why make your blade do extra work though? It takes a couple of extra steps to fix.

After you have made the offset. If it has made a smaller offset on the hole, move the original tag to the side. Select the offset shape only and Right Click > Release Compound path > Select the little hole and delete it. Select both tags and Align Center both horizontally and Vertically. Now Continue following the instructions, starting with drawing out a shape to match the original tag hole etc etc.

Here’s some of the Gift Tags I have made – there’s free Cut Files for them all….