Silhouette Mint Machine

Hi Crafters,
I am back with a Silhouette Mint picture post. I will do a video when I can  but at the moment with the kids off school its too noisy to do it.

The Silhouette Mint is a fabby little stamp machine that can make stamps in 7 sizes.  The smallest is 15mm x 15mm and the largest is 45mm x 90mm

This is what they say :  The Silhouette Mint™ is the most innovative and powerful custom stamping system on earth. The machine’s special “thermal printing” ability lets you create 3D reliefs of custom designs on Mint stamp sheets. Simply apply Mint inks to your stamp and you are ready to roll. Stamp up to 50 times before reapplying your Mint ink. Design it, Mint it, ink it, stamp it.

To create a stamp you will need the following :

Mint Machine and software on a PC
Mint Inks
Mint Stamp Kit
and an idea!

First up let me tell you about the accessories that you will receive with the starter kit.
You will receive the machine, 4 mint Inks in Black, Red, Blue and Yellow and two STAMP KITS
in 15mm x 60mm and 30mm x 30mm , Software and Instructions and leads.

The Stamp kits comprises of

• WOODEN BLOCK,
• a Stamp Sheet (that can be used once to make one stamp)
• a couple of stickers to stamp you finished stamp onto it,
• a stamp cover to keep the stamp dust free and free from drying up.  The stamp sheet is encased in card and once you have made your stamp you tear your stamp out and stick it onto the interchangeable stamp mount. 

This stamp mount clicks on and off the wooden block. So once you have that particular wooden block you need never get another one of that size.  You would only need to buy replacement stamp sheets which come in packs of 2.

Prices of the STAMP KIT for the 15mmx 30mm is £11.99, this is the price for one stamp, however, now you have that particular block size you would not need to get another.

STAMP SHEETS which are £11.99 for TWO sheets - £6 for a fully personalised stamp is really not bad.

There are 15 colours in total in the Mint Inks - Prices for a bottle are £5.49 each

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First up you design the stamp in the Mint Software, start by selecting the size of the stamp that you want to make. I have used a mixture of a font and a graphic

from the Silhouette Store.

Once you have designed the stamp you click MINT leaf which

will convert the image, It will flip the design itself, check and double check your

image looks ok.  Once you have made the stamp its too late, you can't change anything!

In there a designer software there are options to change the graphic so play around with this to get the effect you are after.

(here you can see the stamp sheet stuck onto the interchangeable mount and the lid)

Once you are ready to make the stamp, select the SEND TO MINT and the

light on the machine will begin to blink.

Insert the correct size stamp sheet according to the size you were designing.

When it comes out it will look kinda flat, you'll see where the image has been

thermally placed on the sheet and probably like me you will look and think "How the heck will this work".  But I promise you it will work!!

(Here you can see the stamp sheet and interchangeable mount clicked into place on the wooden block)

Using the special formulated MINT INKS place the ink using the fine nozzles

where you want the ink to be.  Carefully.  The ink is special in that it is thicker

thank normal inks.  It will absorb into the stamp. You need to wait approx. 5 to 10 minutes

for the ink to absorb and the stamp to be ready.

Here you can see the first image I printed was the bottom one and it took approx. 9

stamps before the image was clean and ready to use.  This can now be used up to 50

times.  Of course it will be a lot lighter the nearer to 50 you get, so it might be

that you want it to remain darker and you might just get 30 images out of it.

Once the ink is out, simply re ink.  This can be with the same colours or different ones.

Here you can see the detail that this stamp machine can pick up

Look at that birds little legs!

Here is a selection of stamps that I have made.

The with Love one was a lifesaver during Christmas cards.  It will be ready for Christmas next year or anything I need to write this on!

I simply scanned my writing and uploaded to the software.

I have also made this one for my Mum for Christmas

Of course for this one as I was giving to someone else I had to buy a

STAMP KIT with the WOODEN BLOCK and also an ink so Mum could re ink her stamp.

I think you can safely say I LOVE THIS MACHINE - whenever I feel I need a stamp

for whatever reason within minutes of designing it I can have one ready and inking.

HANDY HINT When working out which stamps I needed first I drew the sizes on a piece of paper to give me a visual and work out which ones I would use most.  I must say the 2 sizes that come with the machine are probably the most useful.

Crafts U Love www.craftsulove.co.uk have the starter kits

they also have all the accessories on order so they will hopefully

be arriving soon.

I am finishing off the project I made the stamp for so I will add that picture to this post later after we have had our tea.  I will also try and shoot a video later in the week.

Here is a very quick video showing you how I sent it from the software to the machine.

So until next time... Happy Crafting.

Caz x