Vinyl on Jars, Cups, and Books

Haven't you felt like you could create your own stickers or vinyl sayings for your home? I see so many stickers in packages and find one or two I like and the rest will be stored until I can find some use for them. It is much easier to make your own even if you are not an artist, you just need the right materials and a design you can use.

Stickers have been used on jars for years and putting your mark on mugs and cups has also been around for a long time. Did you know that most sticker paper is not all that suitable for more permanent designs? Although some are dishwasher safe, you are far likely to keep your work intact if you wash by hand. Just keep that in mind when we go through this journey of creating a vinyl sticker.

Materials You Will Need

• Vinyl sticker paper (or other sticker paper), I recommend the ones you find at Cricut.com - I trust the quality - this is from personal experience.
• Transfer paper - this is a paper that will stick to your cut out design to keep the shape and order of all the pieces in place. You can place items by hand but transfer paper makes the job much easier. Once again Cricut has some good quality transfer paper.
• Weeding tool - now you must be wondering if you are going gardening here and you are in a way. A weeding tool is a sharp instrument you can use to pick out the unwanted parts of your design and leave just the parts you want to have on the cup, jar, book, or other items.
• Cutting tool - I use a Cricut Explore Air 2 for cutting my designs but if you do not have one, you can use scissors to cut your pattern. You will need to have your pattern printed on sticker paper to get started here.
• Design program or hand drawing. I use design.cricut.com for my designs and it is FREE to anyone! A great place to put designs together and then print them out.
• A scraper for smoothing out part of the final design.
• A cup, mug, jar, book, or something where you want the design to be placed.

Getting the Design Completed

 As I have a personal thermos cup that I take to my favorite coffee shop, I wanted to put my name and a design on it so that it is identifiable as mine and there will be no mix-up and put coffee in my tea mug! Here is what I did to make my design.

I choose 2 text blocks. Text Block 1 simple states "Bette's"

Test Block 2 states "Tea Cup"

I wanted to curve each clock around an image that showed a tea bag or other design. I found some free clip art to take care of the design. It was very easy to put this together. Now for the more difficult part of the process.

1. I had my Cricut cut the design out on vinyl sticker paper. I used a holographic paper which is gorgeous.
2. I use my Xacto knife to cut a square around the cut design so I could lift the design all in one piece.
3. I used the weeding tool to get rid of the unwanted parts of the design and left only the parts I wanted on my tumbler.
4. With the cut square in hand (I cut around the whole design to have it in one piece), I cut a piece of transfer papers to match the size of the design.
5. I pulled the backing off the transfer paper and placed the sticky part very carefully over top of the design to make sure it was on smoothly. I used a flat scraper to smooth it out completely and to make sure all of my design was going to stick to the transfer paper.
6. I made sure the surface of my tumbler was clean and dry. This was to ensure my design would stick.
7. I peeled the backing off the vinyl design. I now had the transfer paper and my design stuck together.
8. I carefully hovered over the tumbler to figure out the exact positioning of the design and then placed the middle down first and smoothed the rest of the design into place. You have to make sure the design is completely stuck to the surface before removing the transfer paper. (You can keep your transfer paper for a second and third use by placing it back on its original backing).
9. Finally, I smoothed out the design on the tumbler. I love the result!!!

 Where to Learn More

BTW you can find some great videos on Vinyl Stickers - my favorites are Melody Lane and Jennifer Maker Marx.

Final Word

This project was fun and easy! I am sure to do many more in the near future. Are you willing to try a vinyl sticker project? Here is one done by another maker!

Until tomorrow...

Bette

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