Review & promo code: Silhouette tattoo paper

My daughter was thrilled when she saw that the folks at Silhouette sent me some tattoo paper to try out.  She knows that I use my Silhouette cutter to make freezer paper stencils, to make custom iron-on transfers, and to add rhinestone sparkle to things I make for her.  She thought it was sooo cool that I could use it make temporary tattoos as well.

And today we gave it a try.

There are all kinds of fun images you can purchase from their online library, but the image I used was this lightning bolt.

Little girl is on the swim team for our neighbourhood pool; we’re the Leawood Lightning.  Her first swim meet of the season was tonight.  See where I’m going with this?

We made a Leawood Lightning tattoo.

First things first, I needed to turn my downloaded image into one that looked like our blue & yellow lightning bolt.  So I ungrouped the image and isolated the lightning bolt.  Then, I used a tutorial from the Silhouette blog to turn it into a print & cut image with the right colors for her team.  I sized it small, and then copied and pasted the little lightning bolts until I had filled the page with them.

(I printed mine on a laser printer, but their product description mentions that it works on an ink jet printer.)

Now, to turn all of these images into temporary tattoos.  The tattoo paper came with instructions on the back, but the Silhouette blog shared a more detailed tutorial last week.  These were the instructions I used, and they were super easy to follow.

And it worked!  How cool is that!!  Her coaches thought the tattoos were so neat, and several other girls on the team asked if they could have one, too.  For the next meet, I’ll be bringing enough for the whole team.

The cost for the tattoo paper is kind of high ($9.99 for two 8 1/2 x 11″ sheets) for just everyday just-because tattoos.  But when you’re looking for a specific image or color scheme – like team names or school mascots – it’s totally worth the price.  And if you’re super efficient with the placement of the designs, you can actually get quite a lot from just one sheet.  I got 48 fairly good sized lightning bolts on the one sheet that I cut.  That works out to a little more than 10 cents per tattoo!

Discounts for Craft Gossip readers

From now until June 29, 2011, Silhouette has a couple of promos going on for Craft Gossip readers.

First, if you don’t have a machine yet, you can get a special bundle for a discounted price.  For $199, you can get the Silhouette SD digital cutter and 2 packages of temporary tattoo paper.  (You save $120 from the regular non-bundled non-promo price!)  Click here for the bundle and enter the promo code GOSSIP at checkout.

Or, if you already have the machine, you can get 25% off of  all other products in the Silhouette shop (excluding gift cards and download cards).   Just enter the code GOSSIP at checkout to get your discount.