I know this will sound weird but we while were looking into embroidery sewing machines, husband and I found that a piece of equipment we have wanted for years came down in price significantly. Do not ask how we got from embroidery machines and digitizing software to vinyl sticker cutter, I have no idea, but we did.

It’s the Roland Stika – home vinyl and decal cutter.

We got the smallest of the 3 available, at much more reasonable, largely discounted price. It was comparable to some of the scrap booking paper cutters I’ve seen out there.

It comes with a plug in for Illustrator that prints directly to the machine, which acts like a printer or plotter. It’s sounds slow in the specs, but we have not had to wait more than a minute or two for a large design to finish. We are like little kids, putting stickers on everything we can think of to stick them on.

The machine came in on Friday and husband did a few test cuts to make sure it was working (it came with one scrap sheet of vinyl). Our supplies came in yesterday and we’ve been cutting away ever since.

First up, the Anssi chair from Ikea. I cut one of my designs out after some fiddling in Illustrator.

These are the stools for our work room. We went yesterday and picked up two.

Second, my suitcase got a big passion flower on it this morning…

before I removed the transfer tape:

after I removed the transfer tape:

the top picture is truer to the color of the suitcase. the vinyl I used in both cases is a bright bubble gum pink.

Husband has made two cuts of our family crest (see his site, top), one for his bike rack and one for his suit case. He also cut some logos from his favorite show, Gundam and put them on his bike and G1. My attempt to put the passion flower on my G1 was a no go, but I think it’s the soft touch finish of the phone.