Do You Silhouette?

Your gonna want to get in on the Cameo 3!

I’m in love y’all! In love with my new Silhouette Cameo 3 from Silhouette America! 5 days…I’ve only had my Cameo for 5 days and am absolutely smitten with it!

New craft bloggers need love too…

I started this blog, in May of this year, just wanting to share my passion with the world. A passion for crafting. Something I was started off doing at a young age by my mama. I don’t know if my blog is a huge success. I’m not sure if I have thousands of readers or only one. As long as somebody benefits in someway from one of my post’s; then I’m happy.

But, is it enough? For me…yes. When wanting to work with some companies…no. Some companies want to only work with you if you have thousands upon thousands of monthly visitors to your site. Others, only want to work with you if your following on your blog or social media are in the thousands.

Well…what about us newbie bloggers? We need love too. I may not have thousands upon thousands of readers or followers. But, I have EXTREME PASSION for what I do. We, as newbies, just need to be given a chance. Don’t we all have to start somewhere? How can we though if we aren’t given a chance?

Well enter Silhouette America!

August 18, 2017 is the day that started it all. It’s the day I decided to contact silhouetteamerica.com. The day I decided “well I won’t know till I ask” and “what’s the worse that could happen they tell me no”. A few weeks before this day I had already reached out to some well known craft stores and had got nowhere with them. I was bummed and wondering if I would ever be able to work with any company at this point. If they based their answer on #’s…well then no I would never be able to work with companies. But, like I said before I wouldn’t know until I tried.

I sent an email on Friday evening asking if they worked with bloggers when it came to testing and reviewing products. Seeing how I did not contact them till Friday evening I naturally did not have a response till Monday. Come Monday I got a response at least! It wasn’t a super long response but it had all the information I needed. I was told they have a program called Silhouette Creators. In this program they send a newsletter out with types of projects they are looking for, if you see something that interests you then you simply send an email with your pitch to them, if they like your pitch then they will send product for you to create it with.

Serious?! Ok, well I’m gonna need to get in on that please!

How awesome is that! You pitch them an idea, if they like it then they send you product to make your masterpiece with! Yes! Yes! ON EVERY LEVEL…..YES! I asked how I could go about getting signed up for the newsletter and the response was instant. The second I asked they signed me up and I had the newsletter and a response from them letting me know they had signed me up in my inbox! Now, look most times when I send an email…to ANYBODY…it takes days or weeks to hear anything back. Not with Silhouette America!

The next email that came a few minutes later was the company asking if I had a Silhouette machine. I had told them unfortunately no, but, would love to get my hands on one and that it would come in handy on a lot of projects I do. My current method before receiving this miracle in a box was putting paper on my screen, tracing out my chosen object, then cutting out that object, then using the paper as a stencil. It was time consuming but, it’s what I had to do. I didn’t have the money to buy one of these beauties. After sending this response back to them I didn’t hear anything the rest of the day.

That’s ok though.

The next day I still had not heard anything from them, and that was ok. I had been given an answer to my question about working with bloggers. I had a plan and a goal. My plan was keep sending pitches until they picked mine and my goal is to build a good relationship with Silhouette America to where they will want to work with me on a regular basis.

But wait there’s more!

Around 2 o’clock this same afternoon my phone beeped letting me know I had a message. Turns out it was an email. Not just any email though, it was from Silhouette America! What was in the email was a total shock to me! They told me they could send me a refurbished Silhouette Cameo 3 if I would like! Uh are you serious right now? Look don’t play with my emotions like that! Is this for real? I had to read the email 4 times to make sure I was reading it correctly! They wanted to send little ol’ me; someone who doesn’t have this mega-huge or fancy blog a Cameo!

They weren’t sending it to me in an exchange for a social mention or for me to even write this post. They were just sending it to me. Talk out a company reaching out to a newbie blogger. A blogger who’s website isn’t well known yet….yet people. A blogger who was just needing to be given a chance. And they took that chance on me. I don’t think this company, and, who I was communicating through emails with this whole time, will truly ever understand how much this means to me. I hope this turns into a lasting relationship with Silhouette America.

The amazing service just keeps coming with Silhouette America!

As you can imagine I immediately jumped on the offer! You want to me send a Cameo, refurbished or not I need it in my life! This company had not only made my day, but my week! I was informed that refurbished Cameo’s do not come with a blade or mat, I would have to get those. No blade or mat….shoot….no problem. I will gladly purchased those! They even sent links to the ones I would need to make it easier on me. After talking about blades and mats for a few minutes I asked if they could let me know when it shipped…due to being so excited… They told me of course they would let me know. The following day I got an email saying it had shipped and 4 days…4 days later people I had my Silhouette Cameo 3.

Yes that’s me the day it came!

I was so excited to see Fed Ex pulling up to my house! It could only have meant one thing! My Cameo was here!

Have you ever seen such a beautiful sight?

Once I got it….

Once this beautiful piece of machinery arrived I didn’t touch it for 2 days. Let’s be honest I was a little intimidated by it. I have never used anything like it. What if I broke it? Oh that would of been terrible! It was “my precious”. I couldn’t take the chance of breaking it…but I really wanted to play with it.

So, I finally set it all up; which by the way is super easy. I found a haunted Halloween house I wanted to try a first cut on. Got my paper all loaded and hit send like it said to……………

Well…………

My paper and mat were going all over the place, it was cutting a straight line instead of a house, and then would say job complete. Um…no sir you are not complete. I asked for a haunted house not for you to shred up my cardstock. Turns out I didn’t have the paper peeled off my mat, or have the roller adjusted to the correct size and have my blade pushed all the way in. Once I fixed all this it cut right! Live and learn right? Right!

And here it is! My first cut!

Pretty cute huh?!

And then I really got into my Cameo! Hey, every haunted house needs a pumpkin, black cat, witch and ghosts!

The sky is the limit with a Cameo 3!

This is just one of many creations to come with my new Cameo. The sky really is the limit with this amazing machine and I can’t wait to unleash the capabilities of it! Take time to check out Silhouette America at silhouetteamerica.com. You will not be disappointed with this machine or company.