I love using my Cameo Pro for large 3D paper crafts! In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create these giant 3D stars from colored poster board for your patriotic décor. This project can be cut smaller with a regular Cameo or Portrait, but my instructions are for giant stars using poster board with the Cameo Pro.

Supplies:

Step One: Prepare Design in Silhouette Studio

1. In Silhouette Studio®, open Design ID #84576.

2. In the Page Setup Panel, select the following settings:

  • Machine = Cameo Pro
  • Cutting Mat = Cameo Pro 24 x 24 in.
  • Media Size = 22.0 in. width, 24.0 in. height

3. Select the entire design and resize it to fit the larger page size. You want the two largest stars to be close to the left and right cut borders without going over.

Tip: keep the design grouped, then in the Scale portion of the Quick Access Toolbar, make sure the lock icon is locked and set the width to 28.50 in.

4. Ungroup the design (right click > Ungroup), which will release all of the stars and perforations.

5. Move the medium stars (the individual stars, not the ones inside of the detailed star design) away from the rest of the design to save for later.

6. Drag a selection box around the detailed star to select all of its pieces and perforations.

Tip: If you have to select part of the other star in the process, be sure to hold your Shift key while clicking on any part of the other star you need to deselect.

7. Once only the pieces of the detailed star are selected, choose Group (right click > Group). You can drag it away now to make sure you grouped exactly what you wanted.

8. Drag a selection box around the remaining large star to select the outline and its perforations.

9. Group the second perforated star, and then position it in the center of the virtual media. The other parts of the design should be off to the side and not on the virtual media. Your design page should look something like this.

Note: If you choose to resize anything at this point, make sure you select everything so it is resized at the same time. 3D crafts are picky this way.

Tip: You can trim your 22 in. x 28 in. poster board down to 24 inches before placing it on your mat, or you can use a shortcut and draw a horizontal cut line below the bottom of the star design to have your Cameo Pro trim the full sheet of poster board for you.

Step Two: Cut with Cameo Pro

1. Go to the Send Tab.

2. Verify with the cut preview that the bold red lines are where you expect them. These lines are what the Cameo will cut.

3. Make sure you’ve connected your Cameo Pro and inserted your AutoBlade or manual blade in Carriage 1 (left side).

4. Set Carriage 1 settings as follows:

  • Material = Cardstock (we’ll use this default and then tweak the settings below)
  • Action = Cut
  • Tool = Blade (whichever you have installed should be auto detected)
  • For poster board, adjust your settings to the following and then test it out with a smaller design on that brand/color of poster board to see if it cuts well for you:
    • Blade = 6
    • Force = 28 (may need to increase to 30, depending on your thickness of poster board)
    • Passes = 1
    • Speed = 3
    • Line Segment Overcut = ON (check the box next to the quirky triangle)

5. Prepare the Cameo Pro for cutting with the 24-inch mat by securing all of the support pieces in place so your large mat is fully supported. You need at least 20 inches of table space in front of and behind your Cameo Pro while cutting with the large mat for full support and accurate cuts.

6. Now you need to physically place your poster board on the mat. Because we are using media that is narrower than 24 inches on the 24-inch cutting mat, we need to leave room on the side for the rollers.

7. Place the 22-in. wide poster board on the mat so you are only putting it on the sticky part of the mat. Line up the top edge of the poster board with the grid, but leave a half-inch gap along the left side of the grid where it’s not sticky.

You can see this on your virtual mat in the software, and you’ll also get a reminder of how to load after you click Send.

8. Load your 24-in. mat into your Cameo Pro so the left edge of the 24-in. mat lines up with the LEFT loading guide. (Use the inner loading guide for all smaller mats and any media that loads into the Pro without a mat.) Check after the mat is loaded to make sure it loads evenly across the top.

9. When ready, press Send in the software.

10. After cutting, carefully remove the first star cutout and set aside.

Tip: I find it easiest to flip the mat upside down and pull the mat away from the poster board to avoid excess curling.

11. In the software’s Design tab, move the first star off to the side of the virtual mat and move the other large star onto the virtual mat and position within the cut borders.

12. In the Send tab, use the same poster board settings to cut the second star. Load the material and mat as described previously.

13. Once both large stars are cut out of poster board, cut the smaller remaining stars from various colors of coordinating cardstock using appropriate cardstock cut settings. Patterned paper is a nice touch.

14. As an optional step to add structure, draw and cut a 3 in. x 4 in. rectangle from the poster board scraps.

Step Three: Assemble

1. Preheat your hot glue gun if you haven’t done so already.

2. Fold the stars carefully along the perforation lines. I start with the longer folds that run to the star’s tips. These are “mountain” folds.

3. Once the mountain folds are complete, crease the shorter fold lines as “valley” folds.

4. If you cut out the optional 3 in. x 4 in. rectangle, roll it up and glue one long end to itself so you have a four-inch tall cylinder. Then hot glue one end to the inside center of one of the large stars. (I don’t glue the other end; this provides enough structure to help the star not collapse in the center.)

5. To hot glue the flaps from one star to the other, you can choose to either tuck them inside the star to be hidden, or you can wrap them around the outside, if the back of your star will not be seen.

Note: One edge of each star point will not be glued, and that’s fine. If you want to dab some hot glue inside to close the gap, you may do so.

6. Hot glue the smaller cardstock stars to the front of your large 3D star. I consider this optional, as well.

7. Because most colored poster board has a white core, you may wish to touch up any white areas with a bit of matching acrylic paint.  

Now you can make as many giant 3D stars as you want for your patriotic décor! Hang with string or stick to a wall, window, or door. These giant stars really pop no matter where you place them!