So the day after my Silhouette Portrait arrived I set it to work cutting a stencil for me. You see, Dad requested the first of The Hobbit films for Christmas and that gave me an idea for a handmade gift.

Having done my research on paper cutters, I knew that the cutting mat tends to be too sticky when first used. I did a test run with normal office paper and it stuck so firmly I had to scrape it off. I then followed the suggestion of patting an old tshirt over it to deposit some lint. It still gripped overly firmly, but the paper I switched to for the stencils was glossy and resisted the stickiness better.

The words on the stencil needed to be quite large, so I had to cut seven pieces of paper and tile them together. Once I had my stencil assembled, I took it outside…

… got spraying with black spray paint…

… to add a famous The Hobbit quote to a doormat to go outside Dad’s hobby room: