Silhouette Machine

While at Linda McClure's booth at NCACS, we were able to watch a demo of the Silhouette machine.  For those of you who are familiar with scrap booking, it is a cutting machine much like the Cricut and Gazelle, only it has been modified to cut through gum paste.

Initially I wanted the Cricut Cake, before I knew about the Silhouette.  As soon as I saw the demo, I was in love.  Imagine a machine that can cut any design you want onto gum paste!! The possibilities are endless! 

The basic difference I learned about the Cricut vs the Silhouette is that the Cricut uses cartridges = expensive.  The Silhouette on the other hand uses a design program where you can basically load any image you want, whether it be a drawing or a clip art design you saw online.  Imagine never having to buy any more individual cutters! Petal cutters can cost anywhere from $9 each to who knows - and that's for each type of cutter! Yes the initial investment for the Silhouette is not cheap but  I can already see the $$ going back to my pocket. 

As soon as we got home from the cake show, I watched the instructional videos and made Linda's gum paste (recipe can be found on her blog, just do a search for Linda McClure).  It does need to rest for a couple of days in order to set up properly.  I also invested in a Kitchen Aid pasta roller in order to roll out the gum paste to the proper thickness.

A couple of days later, I was excited to test the machine.  I had problems at first - the learning curve as they call it, but a few quick emails between Linda and I put me back on track.  I only needed to cut a few letters and a border that was going to go around the base of a cake I was making later in the week.  After a few adjustments, success!  You can see the letters and border I cut using the Silhouette on teh daisy cake I'll be posting about next.

The next time I "play" with the Silhouette, I'll make sure to take a video so you can see this amazing machine in action.