Hey! Niki here with you today, with a quick tutotial on how to create an internal offset...for those of you who know me well by now, you'll know I like to add stitching to my cut files and layouts, so today's layout takes a pre-made cut file from the Silhouette Design Store and I am going to add an internal offset and stitch around that.

I started off with this witches hat cut file with a phrase inside.

I went to the Object menu and Released the Compound Path so that all parts of the cut file were separate.

I then selected the outline only and went to the Offset window on the right. I selected Internal Offset and played around with the amount until  was happy that my internal offset didn't effect the wording within the file. I could have created an external offset of course but this time I went internal.

I then selected the internal offset that I have just created and went up to the Line Style dropdown menu. I choose the third one down, the dashed line and that turned my internal offset into a stitched line instead of a solid line. I then sent my cut file to cut - the machine cut all the solid lines but perforated the internal offset. I could then apply stitching around the internal line of the hat.

I love the black shape outlined by the orange stitching, what a fab cut file!

Thank you so much for joining me today and checking out my layout - happy scrapping xx 

Hello! Niki here again with a tutorial on creating stitched offsets. I started off by choosing a hot air balloon file from the Design Store. I opened it and it appeared like this.

I enlarged all the pieces and and then wanted to add an outline.

Instead of creating an offset here I simply added the outline shape that came with the cut file around the pieces.

I then dealt with the basket part of the balloon. It was in a few different pieces and I wanted to simplify them a little and weld them all together. 

I had to fiddle around with this a little bit, but basically I placed them all on top of each other, and then clicked 'divide'. I was then able to remove the bits I didn't want whilst keeping the outline. 

I then wanted to keep the internal stripes solid, but the outline around the whole shape to be a stitched line. So I simply highlighted it and changed the line style to a perforated edge.

With my outline sorted, I could now work on all the middle bits. I wanted to cut each one out of a different coloured paper and create stitch lines within each one.  I selected the first stripe, created an internal offset and then changed the offset line to the perforated style. I did this for each stripe. I also grouped each stripe individually together with it's internal offset so I could move them around.

I kept my whole design in tact here and simply copied the stripes. I pasted them to one side for now.

I then removed all solid lines. This is becuase I wanted all stitch perforations to be also cut directly into my background. I was then able to send this design to cut on a white cardstock background sheet.

Moving on to the stripes (together with their perforations) I arranged these onto a new mat in a way that I could cut each from a different coloured paper.

Once everything was cut, I could then stick my hot air balloon stripes in the right place onto my background (carefully lining up the holes) and then add my stitching. I stitched the outline too. The result is fabulous! I love how it turned out.

Thanks so much for checking this out - it's a little complicated but if you love to add stitching to your cut files then give this a go, the results are always stunning.

Happy scrapping xxx