Using Vintage Papers in your Silhouette Cameo

Disclaimer:  This was a trial and error process more than a tutorial, but the results are great!

I have been wanting to try cutting vintage papers in my Silhouette Cameo for some time now.  I kind of shy away from doing this because some of them are quite fragile and I suppose they would tear.  Today I rummaged through the stash to find some to use on a project I am making to donate to the heARTS for ART silent auction in a few weeks.

I found pieces of a map, and old hymnal, a book, and a heavier stationery (remember the old current Just-A-Notes?) and placed them on a seasoned cutting mat; one that was not quite as sticky as the other.  I overlapped them some as they are thin papers.

I chose the "4 bag tags" and "5 banner flag set" for simple shapes to experiment with.   I also left lots of white space just in case my papers weren't placed exactly as they should be.

I set my machine to cut printer paper in size 12X12,  set the blade at 2, and loaded the cutting mat.

This is how I place the paper on the mat:

 When I sent it to the Silhouette to cut, I ran into a few problems:
1.  The paper that was overlapped caused the blade to get caught and vibrate.
2.  It tore part of the paper.

So I cancelled the cut and peeled up what I could salvage:

Not too much of a mess, until I tried to remove the more fragile papers, and then this happened.

Woops.  But, no worries...I decided to use that little mishap to my advantage.  I got the Pick Me Up tool and used the scraper to get a good part of this mess off, but left some for good measure.  ;)  My thinking was that if the papers I add next weren't completely adhered to the cutting mat, I might have better luck with some cutting, and I was right.

I set up the machine again and changed the shapes to the "two layer bird" and the "tea cup hearts" and this time, I put a bit more sturdy dictionary pages on the mat.  I did not overlap the pages either, but placed them one next to the other.  Be sure to get your shape measurements right if you do this, so as not to cut one shape on two pages.

The blade and paper settings stayed the same for this cut.   See how there are pieces of the previous cut still on the mat?

 And after the cut:

I love them!  I think the tea cup in print is so precious.  The birdie will be cute on a baby card.

There you have it! I have more papers to play with that I will share later.  I'll also share what I make with these in the next post.  I'm willing to try more types of papers if you have some ideas.  Let me know!