Vinyl Cutting Simple and Easy

Have you seen all the neat projects you can do with a Silhouette or the Cameo? Yup, me too. Do you have a Silhouette or Cameo? Me neither. (If you do...lucky you!)  ;)  I decided to figure out how to make neat things without one...and without the fancy supplies. Tonight's project was a little gift for a friend who is very passionate about a certain vote happening in Minnesota.

Here's the steps:
1. Find a logo or design you want to create.
2. I put mine into a word document and printed as a "mirror".

3. You hear a lot about "vinyl"...essentially? It's CONTACT paper. For reals. You can get it at the Dollar Tree...and in a lot of really neat prints...I chose to use a "stainless steel" I'd picked up awhile ago.

4. Cut your vinyl to the right size and feed it into your printer.

5. Print the image

6. Using an Exacto Knife, cut out your design. Depending on the size of your design, your steadiness of hand, and your desires you can decide if you're cutting out each letter to peel and stick on the item or if you're cutting away the letters from the overall design.

 7. Clean the item you plan to adhere your vinyl to. In my case, I cleaned the glass with rubbing alcohol to give the image the best possible chance of sticking. A more common location to stick your vinyl might be pieces of wood, or even right to a wall.

8. Adhere your item.

   *Obviously your item is not water-proof and the vinyl should only be wiped gently if cleaning is needed. This jar is from the Dollar Tree.

OPTIONAL step 9:
I *finally* used my 40% off coupon for some etching cream at Michael's....I LOVE IT!! I still have 1/2 a bottle and have done a TON of projects...showing that despite the high cost, you do get a lot of miles out of it.

To finish the project I washed the design one last time with rubbing alcohol, then gooped on the etching cream. I left it to set for around 10 minutes; I like to let the cream get to a nearly dry state before I rinse it off with warm water.

10. Once rinsed off I took the vinyl off.

Ready for sending. :)