Skill Level: Beginner Basics of Rhinestone Designing Silhouette Studio How can I easily incorporate rhinestones into my existing design? Rhinestones create a nice accent to existing vinyl designs and are a perfect pair for glitter HTV. An easy way begin with rhinestones is to create an offset on your design and convert it to rhinestones using Silhouette Designer Edition. TRW also offers thousands of pre-made designs that are converted to SVG files and separated by color to help you create multi-colored rhinestone items with ease. Rhinestones come in a variety of sizes, measured in ss units. The larger the number, the bigger the stone is. SS10 rhinestones are the most common stones with the widest variety of colors. Rhinestone Panel Options Rhinestone Effect None: This is best used when you want to reverse a rhinestone effect. This will convert your shape or line back to the original. Edge: This will take the line of your shape and convert it to rhinestones. The fill of the object will be taken out and the shape will be simply a rhinestone outline. Linear Fill: This will fill in the entire shape in a grid fashion. This is best used on objects with straight lines or hard corners. Linear fill does not work well with rounded or tapered shapes. Radial Fill: Fills in the entire shape, starting with the outside working its way in. This works best with rounded or tapered designs like circles. Rhinestone Size SS6: 2mm SS10: 3mm SS16: 4 mm SS20: 5 mm Rhinestones can come in other sizes, but SS6, SS10, SS16, and SS20 are the most commonly found and easiest to work with. Silhouette Studio offers rhinestones in sizes SS6 to SS20 and will place stones as SS10 stones by default. Rhinestone Spacing This adjusts how much space is between the rhinestones. The smallest distance is.039 inches. Any smaller and the template will not cut the space in between the stones for brushing. Increasing the spacing is great to create a sparse or scattered look. Draw Rhinestones Select: Basic select tool for rhinestones. It is the same tool as the one in the left panel. Single Click: Places individual rhinestones when clicked. This is useful for adding individual stones as accents or adding stones to adjust a design.
Freehand: Works similarly to the draw freehand tool, but add rhinestones to the lines created with the draw freehand tool. Release Rhinestones: This is an ungroup function of the rhinestones. Each stone will be individual and can be adjusted. Release rhinestones when you want to remove part of the shape or adjust how the shape is being filled. Totals: At the bottom of the panel there is a chart that gives a count of the number of stones in the design. Adding Rhinestones to Vector Designs Rhinestone Borders 1. Bring in your design. While it can be something like a monogram, make sure you have at least a copy of it with the outside line solid. 2. Select your shape and create an offset. The default value is.125. 3. Go to the rhinestone panel. With your offset selected, click edge. 4. You ve created a rhinestone border! Rhinestone Scatter
1. Bring in the shape you are making a scatter of. 2. Make a.09 offset. 3. Keep the offset selected and make a.2 offset. 4. Keep the second offset selected and make a.224 offset. 5. Select the inside offset and fill edge. Keep the stone spacing at.039. 6. Select the middle offset and fill edge. Increase the spacing to.103. 7. Select the outside offset and fill edge. Increase the spacing to.224. 8. You can add or adjust accordingly. Converting Vectors to Rhinestones Converting a One Color Vector to Rhinestone 1. Bring in your vector shape. 2. Resize your shape to the size you would like the template to be. Keep in mind it may be slightly larger or smaller once it is converted to rhinestones. 3. With your shape selected, open the rhinestone panel. 4. Choose the fill that will work best with your vector. Rounded shapes work best with radial fill, straight shapes work best with linear fill. Keep in mind that you can make adjustments to the
rhinestones. 5. To adjust stones, release rhinestones. 6. Nudge stones or add them using single click to finish the design.
Converting a Two Color Vector to Rhinestone 1. Bring in your vector, the vector used in the webinar will be a basketball from the Silhouette library. 2. When converting a two color design, the most important thing to account for is the added space that will be added when the rhinestones are converted. 3. Select your top color (laces in this photo) and go to the offset panel. 4. Rhinestones are about.130 in diameter, so the offset must account for it. Create a.140 offset. 5. With your offset still selected, hold shift and select your bottom layer. 6. Go to the modify panel and subtract. 7. The bottom layer will be broken up after this, group them back together. 8. Select your top color, convert to rhinestones based on shape. 9. Select your bottom color and convert to rhinestones. 10. Release your rhinestones and adjust accordingly.