Hand-drawn States Sketch Instructions

Ok kids, so I've been working on my Hand-drawn States Collection. I'm really excited about this project! I hope you totally love it cause I do! As a girl whose lived in a bunch of these states and driven through many others, I have some pretty special memorials from each place I've traveled--even Nebraska. Whether you use these designs for scrapbooking or cute wall art, I hope you find them useful in sharing some of your precious memories.

These designs were created in Adobe Illustrator but they are compatible with Silhouette Studio. You will need at least the Designer Edition to be able to use them with Silhouette Studio. 

Disclaimer: I really only know Silhouette, it might work with CriCut or other die-cut machine but I wouldn't know how to do it. Sorry!

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What you'll need:

Hand-drawn State SVG file (can be purchased here)

Silhouette Studio Designer Edition

Silhouette Cutting Machine (Cameo recommended)

Cute Paper

Fine Point Sharpie, aka, a normal Sharpie

Ultra Fine Point Sharpie, aka, a skinny Sharpie

Silhouette Pen Holder

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So first, open the design in Silhouette Studio. 

All of the designs in the Hand-drawn States Collection are designs to be sketched with the Silhouette Cameo. If you have a Portrait, SD, or Original Silhouette machines, then you will want to resize it to fit with your machine.

Next, go to your Cut Settings window.

You'll notice that these files have red and blue lines. One of the cool features of the Designer Edition is that you have the Advanced Cut Settings. Select that and then you can choose to cut your design by Layer, Line Color or Fill Color. We're going to use the Fill Color to sketch all the designs in the Hand-drawn States Collection. It doesn't matter what order you sketch the lines in, I have been doing the red lines first. The red line is thicker and designed to be sketched with the normal Sharpie, you can use whatever marker you want, I use Sharpies. I use the skinny Sharpie for the blue line. Just make sure you only have one of the colors selected. I have no idea what the pattern one even does, don't ever select that.

Ok, so now that we have the correct line selected, let's review the sketch settings.

I honestly don't believe that the Material Type matters a whole lot when you're sketching, mostly you want the thickness about 15. If the thickness setting is too high, the pen might drag on the paper. That's not what you want, but it probably won't be a HUGE issue with these designs.

 I don't ever, for anything, use a speed higher than a 4. That's your prerogative though.

Once you have your Material Type selected, you can choose to use a sketch pen rather than the ratchet blade.

When you have your cut setting selected, you're ready to sketch. Get the Sharpie in the pen holder, put the paper on your mat, load the mat, and hit Send to Silhouette. That part should be familiar but if you need a walk through on loading the machine, I can definitely help you with that, just ask :)

When it is done sketching the first color, DO NOT UNLOAD THE MAT. I repeat: DO NOT UNLOAD THE MAT. Unloading the mat can move it slightly enough that the different outlines don't line up properly and I can't guarantee it'll look good. I can guarantee that if you don't move the mat and just switch the markers, you'll have one super freaking cute state outline. Promise. So, like I said, once the first color is done, don't unload the mat, just change the marker, select the other color of line and again Send to Silhouette. You shouldn't even have to adjust the cut settings at all.

That's about it people. It should be pretty easy but it could be tricky if you're new to Silhouette. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have, I'd love to help you out!