Tutorial: Welded Titles with the Silhouette Machine

I just love creating welded titles with my Silhouette. It gives everything such a custom look. What is a welded title? It's where all the letters/numbers in a font/image are touching - so that when the Silhouette cuts it out, the letters are all attached as a single item.

Vacation Album Memorabilia Pocket
These folders hold brochures, tickets, and other items from our vacations. I labeled this one with a couple of welded titles and a background frame, all cut from the Silhouette. I welded the letters together so that each word was a giant sticker.

Fonts: Mr. and Mrs. Popsicle and Wish I Were Taller from Amanda's Free Scrapbook Fonts

Creating welded titles is one of the best features of the Silhouette. I love the look of a customized title with all the letters touching to form a single word or phrase. I struggled for a bit on how to do this quickly, so that the work of getting out my machine and the tools was worth the finished look of the project. So I practiced and practiced and practiced. (And got lots of advice my friend Brooks!)

So I put together this tutorial on how to weld letters from your fonts with your Silhouette. Give it a try!

1. Type your word in your Silhouette document.
   
2. Click Ctrl+U to ungroup each letter from the object. A light gray box appears around each letter.
   
   
   
3. Click off the word, then click the second letter of your word. Use your arrow keys to nudge it close to the first letter in your word. (Using the arrow keys is more precise than just dragging them around.)
   
   
   
4. Repeat the select/nudge process with each letter of your word until they are overlapping each other as much or as little as you want.
   
   
5. Once you have the letters in place as you want them, you need to weld the shape together. Holding down the Shift key, click each letter of your word.
   
   
6. Under the Modify window, click Weld.
   
   
7. See how your shape looks. Is everything connected? Click it and move it around. Does everything move together? If not, Ctrl-Z to undo that move and try the Weld process again. Sometimes it takes some fiddling around to get those skinny letters in place.
   
   

That's it - you're ready to cut! It's really pretty quick once you get the hang of it.

Once I cut out the titles, I like to use my Xyron machine to turn them into stickers. The full-back adhesive is great for those intricate little details and keeping everything stuck down where you want it.

How about a few more examples?

Birthday Folders
Here are a set of memorabilia folders I created to go in my boys' birthday scrapbook - to hold cards, etc., for each birthday. I created a welded title for the year for the front of each folder using the steps shown in the tutorial.

Font: Wish I Were Taller from Amanda's Free Scrapbook Fonts

Celebrations File and Card File
These file folder boxes house my handmade cards and a tickler file of the celebrations we keep track of during the year. I learned this system from Jen Mohler's Saving Your Sanity: Celebrations class at Big Picture Classes. Love that class!

Font: Minya Nouvelle from dafont.com

If you haven't tried to create welded titles with your Silhouette - give it a try. I so love making these customized titles! It's not hard to do and really makes your projects look so special. Share with us - what have you been creating with your Silhouette?

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