Olive You – A Valentine’s Card

In Adobe Illustrator

As usual, I searched using Google Image Search to find clip art of olives. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I can’t really draw. I can trace, or once I’ve seen the basic shapes used to create something, I can set up and modify.

After I drew my olive, I used the Path Offset tool (Object > Path > Path Offset) to set up a path that was .125″ outside the original olive shape.  And then I duplicated that path and mirrored it and lined it up so the edge of it touched the edge of the first path. For this card, I didn’t want the traditional rectangle shape of a folded card. I wanted it to be the shape of an olive.

I grouped the olive image and the two outlines and centered that in a 11 x 8.5 rectangle (which I’m going to use just for alignment – it won’t do anything else).

I added a heart cutout to the top part of the olive.

I exported the olive part as a PNG, since the basic version of Silhouette Studio does not support EPS files. And I exported the two paths and the heart as a DXF file.

I used that same file to figure the placement of my inside text – I wanted to flood the inside with red, and put my text reversed out. Most importantly, I wanted the text to miss the heart cut out on the front. That way, from the outside, it looks like a pimento. And once opened, the recipient can read the punny saying.

Because the inside doesn’t get cut, once I set it up, I deleted all the outlines I used for positioning and exported it as a PDF.

In Silhouette Studio

In Silhouette Studio, I brought in the PNG file and the DXF file and centered them to each other. Because I had added that outside rectangle for aligning, this is super easy. Don’t forget to delete that extra rectangle though – if you leave it in, the lines will get in the way of the magic registration marks and your print and cut will fail.

To actually enable the Print and Cut feature, you need to go to the Registration Mark window and turn the registration marks on.

Once they are on, you need to make sure that none of the cut marks are outside the red line, and none of the printing is in the gray hash marked areas.

At this point, you want to make sure to save your file.

Print the file using the print icon in the upper left corner.

Flip the paper over in the printer, and then print the PDF file for the inside. You’ll have to test to figure which way the sheets go.

Once the printed sheet is done, put it on the mat (make sure the little square registration is in the upper left corner) and back in Silhouette Studio, make sure the outside paths and the heart lines are set to cut, and send the job to cut.

Final Assembly

There isn’t really any final assembly – the card just needs to be folded, signed and you are done.

I added one extra step – I saw this tutorial on making an envelope from a heart. I enlarged the pattern so that the envelope pattern would fit my card, and then cut it out of a polka dot printed sheet of tabloid paper. Since it was a simple cut, I used scissors, and folded according to the template.

I made my card out of 80# white smooth cover stock, but I made the envelope out of standard 20# white bond.

I used the heart cutout from the card to close my envelope (it has a green side and a red side since it was printed both sides – I went with the red for the envelope. I stuck it closed with a little dab of glue stick.