The Vinyl Decal that Taught Me So Much!

Spring Break is upon us, and with the dreary, cold, and dark winter we have had, this vacation can’t come soon enough! Our family tradition is to go to Cancun with friends, and this year we have a group of 19 going, including my ex-husband and his wife. I am very thankful to have a good relationship with them, and I owe my new husband much appreciation for his role in facilitating a healthy “modern family.” He was actually the one who invited them because, as he so aptly put it, “Family is so important, and no one should miss out on opportunities to make memories with the kids.”

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Since Nora and I recently purchased a *Cricut.com machine, we knew we could come up with something amazing to do for the group. My husband suggested stainless steel insulated tumblers for the adults with a vinyl decal on them. They are the first thing we pack when going to an all-inclusive resort because they keep our drinks cold while we are basking in the warm sun at the pool or beach.

With this practical and fun idea in mind, my husband got 20 oz. white stainless steel tumblers, and Nora and I came up with MANY tweaks of a design that incorporated “modern family spring break” and nicknames for the adults. The designs kept improving and we settled on a Texas shape with “modern family spring break” cut out of it in an oval shape, and the nicknames were cut from a contrasting vinyl and placed in the center.

Through trial and error, we learned many things. Hopefully our tips can help you with your designs with your *Cricut.com and their free Cricut Design Space™ app!

• Choose fonts wisely. Fonts that are too thin are much more likely to peel off of the cup and run the risk of getting damaged when weeding the excess vinyl away after it gets cut.
• Cursive, welded fonts make weeding easier, and the words are less likely to peel off when placed on the cups. For this design, the cursive really wasn’t the look I wanted, so we came up with a Plan B.
• Sometimes a reverse weed design is the best choice. We went back to a printed, lowercase font and cut that out of vinyl in the shape of Texas (reverse weeding).
• Be careful when weeding. Watch out that the circles/shapes inside letters like a, b, d, etc. stay where they are supposed to stay. No matter how hard we tried, we could not get the center of the “e”s to stay. That frustration leads me to my next tip:
• Accept slight imperfections. I had to make peace with those pesky “e”s! There was a slight overlap from a “Q” in one of the nicknames over the “s” in “spring break,” but I just reminded myself that “It’s ok! No one died in the making of these gifts!” That mantra helped keep things in perspective for me, a Type-A perfectionist.
• Before cutting the vinyl on the machine, check and recheck sizing. “Measure twice, cut once” should be the motto! Once the size for the Texas and the placement of the “modern family spring break” (which was in a contrasting color to the Texas shape to be able to see the words when they were placed on top of Texas) were determined, we “grouped” the Texas and the words and “attached” them so if we had to move them, they would move together. They would later have to be “detached” and “ungrouped” to change the color of the “modern family spring break,” but we’ll get to that. We had to adjust the nickname sizes to fit within the “modern family spring break” oval and within the state of Texas shape. Once each nickname was properly sized, we dragged it to another area on the design space.
• Don’t forget about grouping and attaching! The *Cricut.com is programmed to save space wherever possible in cutting designs, so to maintain spacing between items being cut, we had to group and attach them, so the program views them as one object. When the nicknames were complete, we “grouped” the ones together that would be printed in the same color and “attached” them so they would be cut with the spacing we determined. The other nicknames that were to be printed on a different vinyl were “grouped,” “attached,” and hidden by clicking on the group and clicking on the eye on the right hand side of the design space. The “modern family spring break” and Texas had to be “detached” and “ungrouped,” so we could change the color of the wording to match the Texas shape. Having them the same color meant that they would be cut together as one piece. We then had to “regroup” and “duplicate” them for the 5 cups we were making. Once we had the 5 shapes, those were selected and “grouped.”
• Now for the cut (finally)…Half of the cups were going to have a red Texas and blue nicknames, and the other half were going to have blue Texas and red nicknames. We wanted to cut the red Texas and red nicknames (that would go on the blue Texas), so as stated above, we made sure to hide the group of what we didn’t want cut. Placing the permanent adhesive vinyl (color side up and backing side down) on the cutting mat, we followed the on-screen directions to cut. It’s important to make sure the *Cricut is set to the vinyl setting. DO NOT MIRROR this design. When it is finished, we hid the group of names we just already cut and unhid the group we wanted to cut. We then loaded the other vinyl color and cut. As another option, we could have designed everything at once and had 5 red Texas shapes, 5 blue Texas shapes, one group of red nicknames, and one group of blue nicknames. Everything red would have been sorted onto one cutting mat, and everything blue would have been sorted to the other. It’s a personal preference.
• Be very careful weeding. Cut around each Texas shape. Use the tools to pull out (reverse weed) the letters in “modern family spring break,” making sure to leave the centers of letters like a, b, d, etc. Weed the excess vinyl around the nicknames, including the centers of letters like a, b, d, etc.
• Place the design on transfer paper or clear contact paper. We used clear contact paper we got at the Dollar Store and cut a square a little larger than the Texas shape. We then placed the nickname (with the paper backing still on) in the position we wanted within the “modern family spring break” oval and placed the sticky contact paper over it. We used the scraper tool (or a credit card) to help the front of the letters adhere to the contact paper and slowly and carefully peeled off the backing of the nicknames, making sure all of the letters stuck to the contact paper. We then positioned the nickname onto the Texas shape and used the scraper to press the name onto the Texas. We then flipped the design over and scraped from the back to get the design to all stick to the contact paper. We slowly removed the backing of the Texas shape, leaving the adhesive side ready to be placed. Again, we had to be vigilant in making sure the entire design transferred.
• Placing the design on the cups was a job I gave to my husband. He is very determined to get things like this done correctly. First, he cleaned the cups with a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol to remove any dirt and oil that may prevent the design from adhering to the cup. He then carefully positioned the design on the cups and pressed them in place, making sure to avoid air bubbles under the vinyl. The final step was removing the contact paper off of the front of the design and celebrating!!
• We weren’t quite at the finish line, though…My husband went over the vinyl with a hairdryer set to medium heat to help adhesion. We waited 24-48 hours to hand wash the cups.

We had a pre-vacation crawfish boil with our Cancun Crew and presented the cups to the adults. After all of that work, I can’t wait to enjoy a cold, refreshing beverage in my cup with my toes in the sand and friends and family by my side!

Before I could get lost in my daydreaming, the kids decided they wanted T-shirts to wear for the trip that say “Cancun Bound!” Back to Cricut Design Space™ app I go…(but I am really having a lot of fun with the nearly limitless design possibilities of the *Cricut.com!) If you don’t have one, you are missing out!