Halloween Acrylic Signs

The Backstory

I am not much of a Hallowe'en person. We give out candy every year but that's pretty much it. I don't decorate. This year, however, I wanted to put my new Silhouette Cameo 4 Pro to work.

Hubby and I purchased some acrylic sheets to use as our base which he cut to various sizes for me. I can't take much credit for the first acrylic sign which is the Happy Halloween image. I found an image I liked online and used the trace feature in Silhouette Studio to make it useable. I moved the images around a little and tilted the "happy" so it would fit the length we had cut. Once I added the vinyl to the acrylic sheet, hubby made me a frame, stained it, added led lights, attached hooks and hung it up above our front door. I think it turned out pretty cute!

 

Next, hubby decided the bay window should have some images too. He really wanted a black cat so I googled black cat and left the results open. One caught my attention but I didn't say anything. He picked out the exact same cat! We found a few more images. He cut some more acrylic for me and drilled a hole in each of the top corners. I attached the vinyl and we used fishing line and thumb tacks to hang them in the windows.

Last but not least, we added more led lights around each of the windows. I usually don't hang up lights because I am too lazy/forgetful to turn them on and off each night. That's why I insisted the lights we bought had to have a timer. So now, they are set and I can forget about them!

After I showed the Happy Halloween sign, my mom asked for a sign for her front window. I had her send me some images for inspiration. This time, I used Pixabay to find commercial use, attribution free images for the sign. Hubby made a frame to match this size and we added led lights. 

I apologize for the quality of the images. I forgot to take a picture before we set it up in her window.

 

Here's a png version so you can see it better.

I learned a lot from making the Happy Halloween sign. I made a lot of first timer mistakes. You definitely want to check out "Lessons Learned" below.  

I'm cheap. I hate to waste vinyl. Before I sent the Happy Halloween sign to print, I used up what would have been wasted space by placing different wine glass sayings wherever they fit. Waste not want not!

Project information for Boo! Beware

Note: I am only including information and files for Boo! Beware because it is the only one that I can ethically share. As far as I am aware, everything I used in that project is copyright free. The Happy Halloween sign and the individual images were traced off of other images I randomly found. I am still looking for original copyright owners to obtain or purchase permission of those before I feel I can share project files.

Materials

• Oracal 651 Glossy Black
• Oracal 651 Glossy Light Orange
• Glossy Yellow*
• Contact Paper**
• Acrylic Sheet cut to size (Lowes)
• Oratape
• Frame made by hubby
• Led lights purchased off of Amazon
• Scraping tool
• SVG, PNG, Studio***

* My sister-in-law gave me the Glossy Yellow so I'm not sure of the brand or specific color

** I have a brand new 150' roll of Oracal 651 Glossy White but I was being cheap and didn't want to cut off such a small piece just for the top of the candy corn. I had some left over contact paper and that will work for now. If I need to, I'll replace it once I've actually cut into my roll.

Blade Settings

• Blade: 3
• Force: 5
• Speed: 3

What I Learned

Setup Learnings:

Force: I'm still playing with the force settings. I decided to try 5 this time. It seemed to work ok.

Mat Learnings: I used my 24"x24" mat for the first time on Boo! Beware project. My first attempt, I didn't place my vinyl in the correct spot. Since I had to move the vinyl to the right rather than placing it on the edge of the grid (not the edge of the mat), I mistakenly thought that I had to move it down the same amount from the top. No, you do not do that. The vinyl should be placed at the top like normal. Luckily, I had run the test cut so the damage was minor.

Layout Learnings:

Weeding Lines: I used the automatic weed lines to create weeding boxes. However, with everything going on, it didn't create them in enough spots. So, I used the line tool to add more. The problem was that I extended some of the lines past the red lines that indicate "Don't put anything in this zone!" What happened? Well, my layout was cutting just fine, until it decided to go back up and cut one of those weeding lines at the top that I had made. Because my line was outside of the "red zone", it shot my mat out of the machine. Seriously. Luckily, I was able to rescue a good portion of the project and just recut the second half. Note to self...NOTHING can go outside of the "red zone". I'm even more careful now and give it extra room so that won't happen again.

*** Copyright

The Boo! Beware project isn't very fancy but you are more than welcome to use it for personal use.