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Our bikes are from Specialized (not a paid endorsement). I went to their website and searched the product archives until I found photos of our exact bikes in the correct colors. I saved the images to my desktop, and then opened them in Photoshop.
In Adobe Photoshop
Using the magic wand tool, I selected the white areas of the photos, and then inverted the selection to select everything but the white, and then filled it with black. I used the paintbrush tool to fill in any areas that didn’t get filled correctly. I saved these digital silhouettes for making my cutlines later.
In Adobe Illustrator
In Adobe Illustrator I brought in the original photo, then dropped the matching silhouette file over it. I used the Image Trace feature to trace the silhouette file. I then used Path>Offset Path to expand that path so that it was wider than the original because I like to have a little white frame on my print and cuts.
After I had my offset path, I colored it red so I could see it. I used the smooth tool to eliminate the really tight parts that would be difficult to cut.
I repeated this process for the other bike. And then I moved the cutlines to one layer and left the photos on the other. I added the circles needed for hanging the bikes to the garland. One circle needs to be welded to the main cutline of the bike (using the Pathfinder Palette > Combine function). The other smaller circle centers in that larger circle since it becomes the actual hole.
Hanging loop placement is a bit of an art and science – you need to put the hanger loops higher than half of the weight of the item to hang. Otherwise it flips over.
I exported just the photo layer as a PNG file. The cutline layer needs to be exported as a DXF because the basic version of Silhouette Studio doesn’t support Adobe Illustrator files.
In Silhouette Studio
In Silhouette Studio, I set up my Design Page settings for an 8.5 x 11 sheet. I turned the registration marks on, and then I merged in the bike photo PNG and the DXF file. I centered them to each other and made sure the cutlines were going to cut correctly (sometimes you have to scoot one piece or the other a little to get things to line up).
I then sent the file to print, using the printer icon in the upper left corner.
Be very sure to print at 100% because if the file isn’t the right size it will not cut correctly. I printed several sheets.
I then placed a sheet on the mat, being sure to line it up straight with the little square in the upper left corner.
In Silhouette Studio I set up the cut settings and then sent it to my Silhouette Cameo 3
I weeded that sheet, and I discovered that my cut settings weren’t deep enough, so I adjusted them and cut the next one. It weeded much better, so I cut and weeded the remaining sheets.
Final Assembly
Assembling a garland is easy – thread the string through the loops (make sure the string goes BEHIND the art item to make it look more professional) and hang.
Garlands are very difficult to photograph though, with the light in the back window I never can get a good shot. So my feature shot in this post is showing it on the floor.
