DIY Finger Puppets (Silhouette PixScan™ Tutorial)

Please welcome Gisela! She is incredibly talented and knows her way around the Silhouette for sure. She blogs over at Tasty Happenings. Stay tuned after her post for all the ways you can connect with her!

DIY FINGER PUPPETS (PixScan™ Tutorial)

I am delighted to be guest posting here today! Thank you, Dawn for this opportunity, I’m a huge fan so this means a lot to me! I’ll be sharing how to make these super cute finger puppets, it’s a great way to put your Pixscan™ mat to work and get the kids busy at play. So let’s get to it!

When I first came to know about the Pixscan™ technology I immediately thought – fabric! I have to try and cut fabric with it. So what we do in this specific case can also be applied to cutting things out for appliqués, for instance.

Here is a list of materials I used:

about 3/4 yd of fabric and matching thread (details bellow)
Silhouette sewable interfacing
Pixscan™ mat
Silhouette cutting machine
Fabric blade
Fiber-fill or batting
Sewing machine (or you could hand stitch it!)

Let me start be saying a few words on choosing your fabric. Since I am making finger puppets I was careful to choose a motif that wouldn’t be too small, about the size of my finger. The amount of fabric you need really depends on which one you choose. Keep in mind that you will need to have 3 copies of that same element. It’s always better to buy a little extra in case you run into any problems. Also it is desirable for the element to have a mirrored copy somewhere in the pattern. Now let’s get on with the step-by-step:

Cut around the motif giving a good margin. If your motifs are not so spaced out you could even cut a big swatch and have the Silhouette cut around all of them at once. But this specific fabric had the little astronauts very far apart so I figured this was the best approach. You need 3 motifs and one of them has to be mirrored.
Cut a smaller piece of interfacing and iron it to the wrong side of each fabric piece. (The rough side of the interfacing is ironed to the WRONG side of the fabric)
Trim the fabric so that it is even with the interfacing
Remove the paper backing that comes with the interfacing and place the pieces onto your Pixscan mat (fabric side up)

A little side note here – if this is your first time using the Pixscan™ mat I recommend following Silhouette’s instructions on how to calibrate the camera. The instructions are pretty straight forward, so I won’t go through the whole process here.

Soooooo, going forward, take a picture of your mat (making sure that it contains all the registration marks).

Save the picture to your computer, I like to keep it in the desktop so I’ll be sure not to forget where it is!
Open Silhouette Studio and click on the PixScan™ icon, then click on “import from file”.

Once it loads it should appear in the work area. If for some reason it does not accept your picture, take another one and try again.
Now we need to define the cut lines – that’s right, it doesn’t do that for you! I used the tracing tool to get the outline of the image. Note that after tracing I had to “release the compound path” (right-click the image) and deleted all lines except the outline of the image.

Since we will be stitching we need a seam allowance. I used the offset tool and gave a margin of about 0.4 in.
One of our little astronauts is mirrored (remember I said you needed one mirrored copy?). So we need to make sure the cut line is also a mirror copy of the one you just made. To do that click on the replicate icon and mirror. Once it is done you need to place it on top of the astronaut and try to center it as best as you can. Don’t forget to delete your traced cut line, you just want the offset. This is how my final cutting file looks like:

Now we are ready to cut! Adjust the settings to fabric, make sure you switch to a blade that you only use with fabric, and adjust it to the depth which is suggested by the program. Go ahead and cut it! So here ends the PixScan™ part of the tutorial!
Now let’s go to the assembly. Find your two mirrored images and put them on top of each other, (interfacing side together). Iron just the seam allowance (this way you won’t need to pin them together when stitching!). Now we will baste this together. I used a different color thread so it will be easier to remove in the end.
Next step is fill it up with fiber fill or anything to make it puffy ( I only had batting at hand and it worked!)
Stitch a hem at the bottom, by folding the fabric towards the wrong side. Do the same to the your other piece (the one that has interfacing on the wrong side of the fabric).
Now pin the puffy Astronaut to the interfaced astronaut (with right sides together)

Stitch away! I used a short stitch length, so it would be easier to do the turns.
Now turn it inside out and remove the basting (remember I said to use a different color?). Guess what? We are done!

Just a reminder do NOT iron! There is interfacing inside that will glue to the puffy side and you won’t be able to wear it on your finger!
My three year old is in love with these little puppets. I will probably be making more of them, but next time I will get a “Curious George” fabric – my son’s favorite! Did you know there is an entire aisle at Joann with licensed cartoons fabric? I never really paid attention, until I was looking for fabric for this project. There are lot’s of possibilities and the PixScan™ mat is really perfect for this sort of project. Thanks for following along and hope this inspires you to create something awesome!

Thanks so much Gisela for such an awesome tutorial for Silhouette Saturday! You can follow along with her for more inspiration on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.

If you’re a blogger with a Silhouette and are interested in guest posting on a future Silhouette Saturday, please email me with your blog URL and a few post ideas!

Happy creating!

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The post DIY Finger Puppets (Silhouette PixScan™ Tutorial) appeared first on Dawn Nicole.

Dawn Warnaar

DIY Finger Puppets (Silhouette PixScan™ Tutorial)