I received a Silhouette Portrait
for review and today I wanted to tell guys what I thought about it! First, what is it? A Silhouette Portrait is one of the many electronic die cutting machines currently available. It’s made by Silhouette, who also make a larger version called the Cameo.
The Silhouette Portrait is great for scrapbookers and card makers but it’s also great for all around crafters- you can actually cut so much with it- paper, vinyl, washi, foil, fabric, etc. I’ve only used it with paper and foil paper so far, but it cut beautifully on what I have cut. The paper didn’t move or tear which is always a good sign!
One of the items I received with the Portrait was the new PixScan Mat
($14.99) that Silhouette recently released. What’s that? PixScan™ technology is a new feature in the Silhouette cutting system that allows makers to cut precisely around a printed design or to position cut lines in a specific location on your material using a scanner or camera.
Sounds cool, right? I tried it out on a Mocking Jay symbol as well as a little camping tent I downloaded from the Silhouette store.
I actually had a little trouble with my first attempt at using the pix scan mat (the mocking jay), it was having trouble recognizing the outline of the symbol. I think it was just because I’d printed it on gold foil, so it was shiny and there was a glare in the photo. I got it to cut it out after a couple of tries though.
My second attempt (the tent) did work much better, as you can see below. It cut right around the shape- no more free handing for me! This can also be used to scan and then cut around the outline of stamped images, which I think is neat.
Overall, it’s a pretty nice machine. It only weighs about 3 pounds, which is awesome and would be fantastic to take to crops! You can purchase the Portrait for $179.99 .
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