Earlier this week, as part of my fall mantel reveal, I shared a cute little fall sign made from tiles, and I promised that I would share a tutorial on how to make it. You're not going to believe how easy it is to make this sign, especially if you have a craft cutter like my Silhouette Portrait.




As I've mentioned before, one of the perks of working as an architect is that I have access to a lot of architectural samples. It isn't enough to finish a room in, but I can almost always lay my hands on a handful of matching tiles for a craft project.

A few weeks ago, the interior designer in my office gave me several types of tiles. One of these tiles was the new type of "plank" tiles in gray. I also picked up some 3"x 6" glass tiles in a greenish-beige color. When I took these tiles home, I had no idea what I was going to do with them. Yes, I have a craft hoarding problem. Admitting that I have a problem is the first step, right?

As I was beginning to plan out my fall mantel, I realized that these tiles would be the perfect neutral backdrop to my feature color--orange! I grabbed some orange vinyl and got to work with my Silhouette Design Studio.

I took a Halloween card that was the look I was going for, and deleted the card portion, leaving the doily with the jack o' lantern in the middle.


Since I want this mantel to last through Thanksgiving, I deleted the face out of the jack o' lantern and just left the pumpkin. But since my tile is rectangular, and I wanted my vinyl to be proportionate to the tile, I stretched the design.


I then duplicated the design so I had 4 and added a letter to the center of the pumpkin so my design would spell out fall. I just sent the design to the Silhouette and weeded out the vinyl and applied the design to the tiles.

All that was left was to just lean the tiles up on my mantel.

I love how the orange plays against the neutral colors of my mantel.