Build-A-Monster Fridge Magnets

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Have you tried the Silhouette Printable Magnet Paper yet?  I can think of tons of practical applications for this stuff, but for this project I decided to try something fun instead and made monster “paper-dolls”.  The printable side has a nice glossy finish and the material cuts beautifully,  so my little monster pieces came out quite professional-looking.

I knew I was going to be using the Print&Cut function, so I started by sizing my page to 8.5″ x 11″ and adding registration marks.  Setting up my page like this from the beginning would allow me to  move and rotate my shapes within the printable boundaries as I opened up each additional design (and hopefully save material).  I started by opening up the monster body bases design, clicking “Ungroup”, and moving the shapes to fit within the registration marks and save as much room as possible for my additional parts.

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I could have filled my shapes with lots of pretty patterns, but I wanted to keep the design simple so I decided to stick with solid colors.  Many times when I’m crafting, I’m inspired by a certain color combination I see in a swatch of fabric or a piece of patterned paper…and the Studio Software actually makes it really easy to match your project to the colors in an image or pattern.  I created a “palette” from a pattern in the Online Store that had just the right combination of colors for my project.  To do this, I simply drew a rectangle and filled it in with the pattern using the Fill Pattern tool.

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Now, I could use the Eyedropper Tool from the Fill Color Menu to fill each of my shapes with a beautiful, coordinating color.  To do this, I just clicked on the shape I wanted to fill, clicked on the eyedropper, hovered over my pattern until the little box next to my pointer contained the color I was looking for, and then clicked on that spot in my pattern.

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Some of my monster parts (like the eyes and mouths) would need to be layered and grouped before printing so that there weren’t too many tiny pieces in my final project.  After filling them with color and positioning the layers how I wanted them, I first clicked “Group” to create a grouped shape.  Then, I selected these shapes and clicked “Cut Edge” in the Cut Style Window…this allowed the eyes and mouths to remain intact when I cut my shapes.

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I ended up being able to squeeze all of my monster parts onto a little less than two sheets ofPrintable Magnet Paper.  Once they were cut, I stuck all of the pieces next to my refrigerator and waited for funny little monsters to start appearing.  It didn’t take very long.

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What kind of creatures would you build out of custom magnets?

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