My Cricut Scrapbooking

Posts Tagged ‘Cutting Vinyl’

You have to watch this Youtube video that shows how to make glitter balls.  I tried it today and LOVE it!

I used Mop & Glo instead of the Future as shown in the video.  It worked perfect.  I cut the names out in white vinyl on my cricut using Sure Cuts A lot.

Here are the pictures.  I got the ornaments at Michaels on sale 50% off.  I got these with a little bit of the pearl glaze on them and they still turned out very pretty.

My friend let me borrow her Serenade cricut cartridge that she got with her black cricut expression.  I decided since I have metallic gold vinyl that I would cut a bird cage from the Serenade Cricut Cartridge.  I also had some left over room on the 12×12 piece of vinyl so I added two different Christmas ornaments that I thought would look pretty cut out in the gold.

I get asked a lot where I buy my vinyl.  I buy it at www.uscutter.com. The Oracal 631 vinyl is the same exact vinyl that Provocraft sells (2) 12×24 sheets for $9.99.  The metallic gold that I have used is a little bit more expensive then the regular colored vinyl.  It is  $26.99 for a 24″ x 10″ roll of metallic gold vinyl.  They have flat rate shipping fee of $9.99 per order.  On every roll of vinyl that I have ordered I have been able to cut 33 12×24 sheets from it.  What I do is order vinyl with my friend.  We pick out the colors together and then split the cost and divide the rolls when they come.  That way we get more colors for our money and save a lot on shipping since it is all flat rate on one order.  If you decided to order just the metallic gold roll of vinyl.  $26.99+$9.99=$36.98/33=$1.12 per 12×24 sheet and that is way cheaper then the “Provocraft” vinyl and it is the best deal that I have been able to find.  The last order my friend and I placed was for 9 rolls of vinyl and they each came in there own box as packaged by the manufacture and then repackaged in a larger box.  Every single roll of vinyl arrived in perfect condition.

Here is the vinyl on my 12×12 cricut mat after I cut my design.  (Sorry it is kind of hard to see.)  For the perfect vinyl cut you want to do the kiss cut.  Kiss cut means that you cut the vinyl top layer but not the paper backing that the vinyl is stuck to.  To achieve this your blade depth should be set on 6, your pressure should be on 2, (speed I had set on max).

The next step is to weed away all of the extra vinyl that is not part of the design.  I find it easiest to leave the vinyl adhered to the cricut mat and weed it that way.  I just use a Martha Stewart craft knife to poke the pieces I want to remove and kind of lift them off and pull them away from the design.  This is what it looks like after it is weeded.

The ornament on the left is from the Christmas Cheer cricut cartridge.

The Ornament on the left is from the Christmas Cartridge.

The bird cage is from the Serenade cricut cartridge.

You can buy transfer tape to lift the vinyl off the backing and adhere to your desired location.  I just use a roll of clear contact paper that I got from Wal-Mart.  It was less then $5.00 for a huge roll and it works just fine for me.  I am going to wait until daylight tomorrow to put these up.  I just love the color of the bird cage and how it turned out.  The gold sparkle really does not show up well in the picture but it is very pretty.

Recently my friend Lana and I bought a Yudu machine.  You can see the great deal that we got on it here. Lana has had it for this past week and loves it.  She came to work at midnight the other night to show me the wonderful t-shirts she made.  Everyone just raved over the t-shirts and what a nice job she did.  She said my ideas are getting better and better.  First I talked her into a Cricut Expression, YourStory, Gypsy and now a Yudu.  I have been spending a lot of time researching the most cost effective methods of trying to use this machine.  I found out just like the cricut accessories, Yudu accessories are not excluded on the Joanns coupon.  I had a few 50% off coupons and a bunch of 40% off coupons so I was able to stock up on ink.  I am going to try to make my first shirt tomorrow and wanted to check out some YouTube Yudu videos.  I want to learn as much as I can because emulsion sheets are not cheap and I don’t want to waste them.  I found these 2 videos on Youtube.  You kind of have to watch both videos.  If you don’t have a lot of time just make a note of how long she has to wait for the emulsion to dry and the timer for the image to burn on the first video.

On this video, Sandy gave the most incredible tip.  I almost fell out of my chair.

Her idea is amazing.  I have a whole roll of black vinyl that I have not even used yet.  In her YouTube comments she noted that she cut the image out on vinyl using her cricut and SCAL.  No drying time, No burning image time.  Cut the image on your cricut, adhere to underside of screen.  Tape edges and screen print like normal.  This idea is one I have to try and could be a wonderful money saver.  Emulsion sheets are 2 sheets for 19.99 at Joann’s with out a coupon.  Even with a 40% off coupon you would be paying $11.99 which is still $6.00 a sheet.  I buy my vinyl at www.uscutter.com. A 24″x 10″ roll of Oracle 631 black vinyl is $20.99.  (Lots of colors available, most colors are $23.99 per roll)  On all the rolls that I have purchased I can cut a minimum of 33 12×24 sheets per roll.    1 Sheet comes to .63 per 12×24 sheet.  They offer flat rate shipping of $9.99 per order.  Even if you only ordered 1 roll and paid 9.99 shipping it still would cost you .94 per sheet.  That is a real money saver against the cost of emulsion, plus you don’t have the dry and image burn time to deal with. I order vinyl with my friend and split the rolls.  We get to order more colors that way and it is so much cheaper then buying it at the store.  Oracal 631 is the EXACT same stuff that Provocraft packages and sells 2 12×24 sheets for $9.99.  I will be trying this method myself but obviously it does work because those t-shirts looked awesome.

Hi Everyone.

I chose the 2 winners today.  There are 107 comments.  Comment poster #1 is #1 and so on, the last person to comment is # 107.  The winners were chosen via random.org.

Paula Lee and Becky are the 2 lucky winners.  I am sending you an e-mail, please respond with your chosen colors.

Thank you

Beth

I am so excited. Yesterday I was able to get a pink cricut expression machine from Michael’s. I am even more thrilled because in less then 5 hours after buying my pink one I sold my other one. I had asked Kim from the cricut lovers yahoo group if it would be okay to post an ad and she did give me permission. I was working on it when a friend stopped bye for a visit and bought it from me. She did not realize you could cut fabric, vinyl and do other things with the cricut. When I showed her the things I have made, she was amazed.

Since I am giving away vinyl on my blog I really wanted to do a video demonstration but I can’t figure out how to hook up the video camera to record it and me not be in the way. My work area is about 6×6 and I don’t have a lot of room. My husband said he would help me figure something out so maybe I will have something soon. My first cut on my new pink cricut machine was from the Pink Journey cricut cartridge. I cut it out in pink vinyl and it cut perfectly.

I am including the cut file if you are interested in downloading it.  I also included a picture guide on what parts to hide the contour on.  Design studio does not allow that feature to be saved in the cut file so you will have to do it manually if you decide to cut this.

This morning I decided I  had to cut vinyl on my cricut.  I have about 5 or 6 packages of Provocraft vinyl.  Three of them 1 pink and 2 blue I got on clearance at Joann’s for $1.99.  I could not leave them there at that price.  

I was fearful of cutting vinyl because I thought that it would be difficult or complicated.  The instructions that come with the vinyl say to cut it on pressure of 2 and blade depth of 6.  It is called a kiss cut because it only cuts the vinyl and not into the paper backing.  I have a 12×24 mat but I just used my 12×12 since I did not want the cut to be very large.   I hope you don’t mind, but I took a lot of pictures because it turned out great and I thought that it might help anyone else wanting to cut vinyl for the first time.

My first picture is where I have the extra vinyl partially pealed away.  I cut the pieces off as I went, that way they were just out of the way and I could work in small sections.

I realized right off that I had to work slow.  I thought that I could just quickly peal the extra vinyl off like it was a paper design.  The following picture is what happened to the first butterfly.  The wing stretched and distorted a bit before the vinyl cuts broke away from each other.  

I got my cricut tools out and used the scoop from then on and it worked perfect to help lift off the excess vinyl.  I also found it handy to use my magnetic cutting mat.  It helped keep the vinyl flat so I could work with it.  You could leave the backing attached to your 12×12 or 12×24 mat while you are pealing off the excess to keep it flat as well.  

This is the entire project after I pealed away all of the excess vinyl.

I wish Provocraft would have included transfer tape with the rolls but I did buy a roll.  I only cut a 4 1/2 x 12 section of it off to use to do my transfer.  I am putting my butterfly creation on my sliding glass door that goes out to our patio.  The transfer tape worked great.  I put up the butterfly and leaves first and then I cut the 4 1/2 x 12 transfer tape in half and re used it for the butterflies.  I also heard that you could used clear contact paper instead of transfer tape so I tested it on the last butterfly. (the one where the wing was a bit distorted)

This is the clear contact paper.

This is the Provocraft transfer tape.

Here are both applied to my glass door.  The left one is the contact paper and the right butterfly is the transfer tape.  The contact paper and the vinyl transfer tape both worked the same.  I did not notice any difference at all between either.  They both picked up the vinyl off the backing well and when I attached and burnished to the glass, both pealed right off leaving the vinyl in place.  I don’t see any reason why you can’t use the contact paper especially since a huge roll of it at Wal-Mart is less the five dollars, plus you can use the contact paper to try glass etching…(check back soon and I will have some glass etching info posted)

I wanted my first vinyl project to be a cow for my daughters room since she loves them so much.  I even bought the black and white vinyl but did not do it because I thought that it would be to complicated.  I am definitely going to do it now that I am not afraid… Here is my first project completed and I can not wait to try to cut something else.

The design is 2 different svg’s that I have posted in the past.  The original butterfly and leaves svg was posted a while ago.  I decided to change out the butterfly for one that matched my decor a bit better.

Download Butterfly and Leaves Vinyl Design SVG Here