I’m not sure if it’s good if your daughter is a craft blogger or not. On the one hand, it’s super easy to get me a gift (who else would put paper and glue on their Amazon wish list?).
But it may ruin the surprise of some holidays.
Hopefully she’s too busy this weekend to see this post 🙂 .
The co-worker who received my birthday badge really seemed to like it, and I’ve had a lot of feedback from others with kids who thought they’d like one for their special day.
It seemed like a natural shift to make a special pin for Mom for Mother’s Day.
In Adobe Illustrator
In Adobe Illustrator I found a typeface for “MOM” that I liked and that I thought would cut well. Super thin typefaces with lots of details can be a pain to cut as they will often tear out, even if you change your cut settings. I also needed something that would be able to create the layered look I wanted for this particular pin.
I set my type and converted it to outlines (see image 1). After I sized it to what I thought would be a good pin size (I went with about 2.5″ wide), I copied and pasted it so that I  had two versions. The second version would become the background. I added enough stroke to this second version to have the letters overlap each other (image 2).
I then used Object > Expand to covert the stroke to a shape, and then used the Pathfinder Palette Unite function to weld that all into one shape. I then released the compound path and used the Unite function one more time to get a solid background (image 3)
After changing both shapes to be filled with white and stroked in black, I exported the file as a DXF because the basic version of Silhouette Studio can’t import an Illustrator file, but it can take a DXF.
In Silhouette Studio
In Silhouette Studio I set up my Design Page settings as 12 x 6 because I’m going to do my trick of cutting two 6 x 6 sheets at the same time.
I merged in my DXF file, and then set up the background piece to print on the left sheet and the actual letters to print on the right. I matched up my card stock on my mat, changed the cut settings for the paper stock and then sent the file to cut.
After I weeded the two sheets, I used glue stick to adhere the letters on top of the background. I stuck the “O” on first so I could center the other letters by  eye.
I glued a pin back on the back of the pin using a strong adhesive, and let it all dry.
And now, on Mother’s Day, no one will have any trouble identifying her in a crowd.
