Crafting with Andie: Household Quick Fixes using Silhouette and PixScan

Today I decided to work on fixing up things that bugged me.

The first solution was to do something about our stove. It's one of those modern designs in which all the button labels are nearly identical, so when we need to shut the oven off, we have to lean in over the stove to scan all the labels to figure out which button says OFF. My husband asked if I cut out some red rectangles in vinyl to highlight them so we could find them faster.

This simple solution possesses so much awesome. The OFF buttons are now very obvious even when the lights are dimmer. All it took was and idea - hubby suggested it - and less than 5 minutes of work for me. I simply measured the rectangle size needed, then created it in the software from two rectangles: place one rectangle on top of the other, select both and hit "slice" to create a frame. Send to cutting machine to cut out vinyl and apply to stove. Quick and easy.

The next "home fix" project was to resolve issues with rust stains on the floor caused by my vintage sad iron aka "the door stop". I occasionally use the sad iron as a pattern weight, but most of the time it sits on the floor near the front door so it can be used as a door stop when we have the door open for air (sometimes the wind will pull the door shut, slamming it closed. The sad iron prevents the door from moving when it's open).

Although the iron has been painted and repainted, the paint wears off and rust stains appear on the floor where the iron sits. I decided to fix that issue.

You can see where the paint has worn off and the metal has started to rust. I didn't want to have to keep repainting the iron, so I decided to cover the bottom with vinyl. I needed to import a shape exactly matching the bottom of the iron both in shape and in size. I thought about putting it on our scanner, but the iron could scratch the scanner's glass. Instead, I traced around the base of the sad iron. Now, all I needed to do was import that shape into Silhouette Studio at exactly the same size as the original.

Fortunately, Silhouette Studio has a cool method of importing shapes at actual size using the PixScan mat and a camera. The PixScan mat allows you to import an actual size image of something so you can precisely cut it.

I learned several things about the PixScan mat while working on this project. First, it's a sticky mat just like the other mats for the Silhouette Cameo. If you simply place something on the mat without removing the clear cover, the Silhouette Software will give you an error stating that it cannot find the PixScan mat markings in the image. Once you remove the little cover and stick your item to the mat, it will scan it nicely.

I also discovered that the first time you use the PixScan feature, you have to calibrate your camera. This is easily done right in the software. Select the option to "show calibration test card" on the PixScan panel.

Print out the test card - it's a page full of dots.

Photograph the test card, ensuring that it fills the whole image. If it doesn't fill the whole image, the software won't accept it.

The above image was accepted by Silhouette Studio for calibration.

Once your camera has been calibrated, you can photograph your item. Place the PixScan mat on a flat surface, preferably a dark one, and stick your item to the mat. Below is the photo I took of the outline of the shape of the bottom of the sad iron. I photographed the mat sitting on top of my dining room table which is a nice dark walnut color. Ensure that the camera is as close to perfectly horizontal as you can. I tried to line up the edges of the mat with the sides of the camera view.

Next, import the photograph into the software by clicking "Import PixScan image from File".

The image should appear in the center of the screen on a PixScan mat.

Select Trace from the menu on the right, and draw a rectangle around the scanned shape.

Some yellow will appear around the drawn shape. I adjusted the threshold to 75% to get a good outline of the sad iron base.

The trace caught some of the outline of the paper that the shape was drawn upon. Double-click on the image to turn "Edit Points" on.

Click on a point along one of the lines that doesn't belong. Click delete multiple times until that line disappears. Repeat for the other line. Click on the little points just outside the outline (likely from some ink dots or other imperfections in the sketch) and delete those, too. Finally, from the main menu select "Object" --> "Simplify" to remove extra points from the shape.

Now I could have cut the vinyl using the PixScan mat, but I wanted to cut the shape from vinyl on a regular mat, so I selected the shape and pasted it into a new project.