I love this time of year; getting together with family and friends to celebrate the holidays and taking time to relax and enjoy each other’s company. There is always lots of preparation that goes into these events though, and I am so happy I can be more productive using my KNK digital cutting systems! It gives me more time to sit and tell stories with (about) my siblings and our children – lol!

I decided to make a banner for this New Year’s celebration with matching table markers for seating and food labeling. The file includes writing, embossing, and cutting. At first I designed the food flags to be one layer/one color. However, I found out that my gel pen was dry as a bone and I had to redesign the flags to be two-layer, so that I could use a different color of gel pen. I did this very quickly and easily by reopening my cut file and adding a -0.125 shadow layer. I use the shortcut of CTRL + “H” to open the shadow layer pop up window.

Even though it looked like there was more ink in the pen, I couldn’t get it to flow. I like how it turned out in the end though – which you’ll see as you scroll down – so that’s all right with me.

I used black card stock as my base for the banner, then metallic, then white which has been printed on a laser printer and then cut on my KNK Maxx Air using the Print and Cut option in Make-the-Cut. I sprinkled gold and silver ‘silk’ to give the letters a tiny bit of sparkle.

In this close-up you can see the silver metallic circles under the squares:

And for the table and food markers:

Materials:

• 5 sheets 12×12 black WorldWin CutMates card stock
• 1 sheet 12×12 white WorldWin CutMates card stock
• 2 sheets 8.5×11 white card stock
• 3 sheets 8.5×11 metallic card stock
• Standard (red cap) blade
• Embossing Tool
• Gel Pen
• String
• Double sided adhesive
• Pop dots
• Toothpicks

Settings (Maxx Air):

• Writing with a gel pen
  • f = 20
  • v = 100
  • p = 2
  • Offset – “off” or “0”
• Embossing
  • f = 200
  • v = 300
  • p = 2
  • Offset = “off” or “0”
• Cutting WorldWin CutMates
  • f = 42
  • v = 300
  • p = 1
• Cutting 8.50″ x 11.0″ metallic card stock and printed color copy cover stock
  • f = 66
  • v = 225 (slowing it down makes a smoother cut edge)
  • p = 1

Steps:

1. Open the design 2016NYBanner found in the free files.
2. Insert the gel pen. Be sure to turn off the offset.
3. Hide all layers except the ‘write’ layer.
4. Place 12×12 card stock on mat, and place in machine. Send file to cutter.
5. Replace the gel pen with the embossing tool. 
6. Hide all layers except the ’emboss’ layer.
7. Send to cutter.
8. Replace the embossing tool with the blade holder. Turn the offset to the correct setting for your blade.
9. Test cut a small shape in the unused space until it cuts to your expectations.
10. Send file to cutter.
11. Open the design 2016NY_printNcut found in the free files.
12. Change the mat size to 11.0″ x 8.50″.
13. Go to “File”, then “Print Options” and check the boxes next to ‘Show Paper on Mat’, ‘Print Registration Marks’, and ‘Print Registration Marks’.
14. Send file to your printer. Note: there are alignment marks in a separate, locked layer. Do not remove or change this layer as it ensures the registration marks remain in the same place on both the print and the cut layers.
15. Place the printed paper on the mat (anywhere). Use the standard (red cap) blade. Set the origin to the corner of the paper.
16. Test cut a small shape in the unused areas until it cuts to your expectations.
17. Send to cutter, completing the print and cut alignment steps.
18. Assemble and embellish your banner and table markers!

Free File

Enjoy, and Happy New Year to all!