Minnie Mouse Chevron Heat Transfer Vinyl - Cricut Explore

With just over five months until my trip to Disneyland Paris I decided to get my bum in gear to sort out some t-shirt designs. I have only used Cricut heat transfer vinyl before which was pretty expensive for a small amount so I ordered some vinyl from MDP Supplies. I was able to get 1 x 0.5 metres of iron on vinyl for less than the price of the Cricut vinyl. I decided to buy white and black vinyl for stretch fabrics (so it has some stretch to it), pink holographic/glitter and printable heat transfer vinyl. The printable one was in A4 sheets so it will go in my printer and I'm hoping to try and print and cut characters with my Cricut Explore from my Disney Cricut cartridges. 

The only thing that put me off buying from MDP in the past was the cost of postage as its via courier and dye to package size, although I could collect from store, but an option came up for Royal Mail for just over £5 and it arrived the next day (New Years Eve!)

So today I decided to have a go at making a design I saw on Pinterest which was a chevron Minnie. 

To make this I used the Mickey and Friends Cricut cartridge (Minnie's bow and Mickey Ears), and for the chevron I used Chevron Pattern Overlay from the Edge to Edge cartridge (in the Cricut subscription). Ignore the file name, I saved it quickly omitting the 'v' from chevron

I duplicated the bow and Mickey head. I then welded Minnie's bows to give me just one piece. 

With the Mickey head layers I made it so I only had the white outline and main Mickey head shape, highlighted them both and then used the slice button to give me a frame. Then with the other Mickey head I only had the White back layer and this is what I used to slice the chevron.

After highlighting the Mickey shape and chevron I sliced, and after removing the pieces I didn't want, was left with what I needed.

I then put the two Mickey pieces together and welded them.

If I just wanted a Mickey shape I would have stopped here but I wanted a pink bow to make it Minnie. I wasn't keen on layering my vinyl so I placed the bow on the Mickey shape where I wanted it, highlighted the bow and head shape and sliced them.

After removing the cut parts I was left with the below so both pieces fit together without overlapping.

I then cut this out of my vinyl. I found that the glitter vinyl is quite thick, and the vinyl for stretchy fabrics is quite stretchy (as you would expect) so found it best to double cut both times on the iron on + setting which helped when weeding.

My normal cutting mats are a bit unsticky so I decided to use my (very underused) light mat and it was just perfect for this so I think I'll be using that more now for vinyl projects. 

Now I just have to decide what to iron this onto! 

Mickey Mouse Card

I got a text from my sister a few weeks ago asking if I could make a card for her friends little boy who was going to be 3. She said he loved Mickey Mouse and cars, so I thought I'd make him a Mickey Mouse card using my Mickey Mouse Cricut cartridge. I print and cut Mickey out (I love how it cuts his tail so perfectly) and then used the slice feature to cut a 3 out of a Mickey head shape. The letters are out of Mickey font. I then layers on Basill basics card stock. 

His and her Mickey Mouse birthday cards

It's my husbands Aunt and Uncles birthdays at the end of the month and as they're currently in Florida on holiday visiting Disney I thought I'd make them Disney cards. They're birthdays are a day apart so I've made the matching cards.

For Wendy's card I printed a leopard print design on some goldish Centura pearl and then cut this on my Cricut Explore.. I cut a bow on the Cricut too from the Mickey and Friends cartridge with the button bit from double sided adhesive sheet. The text was also cut from adhesive sheeting. I cut some black card into a 6 x 6 size and lined the outside with red liner tape and then put gold gilding flakes over it. I stuck the text onto the card then guilded the button on the bow and text.

 

With Malcolm's card I guilded the text as per Wendy's card but decided to just used coloured card and buttons for the rest. 

I love how these have come out!

Iron on Vinyl Baby Grows

Before I had my Cricut Explore I'd brought some Cricut Iron-on Vinyl to use with my Cricut Mini which I'd never used (but had a project in mind) and recently a work colleague has had a baby so thought it would be the perfect excuse to try out the Iron-On Vinyl. I also had a sample of white iron-on vinyl in my Cricut Explore pack.

I brought a pack of three baby grows from Asda for £3, so each one cost £1. Rather than getting the newborn size I opted for 3 - 6 months as I know how much newborn clothes parents buy themselves, and people buy for them once the babies born, it also gave me a chance to make the items and get them sent before they're too big for them.

The thing I love with Cricut Canvas is that you can choose what 'canvas' you're going to put your artwork onto so you get the right sizing and can visualise it and included in this is a baby grow and it even suggests the sizes based on ages.

I had a flick through the Cricut subscription list and found some great word-art in a comic book style which I thought would be great. I also chose a Mickey Mouse shape with 'oh boy!' written in it from the Mickey and Friends cartridge I have, and then finally I made a design with a star and 'Woody' on (the name of the new baby).

I'm glad I read the instructions as I would have put the Vinyl shiny side up, but this is actually a sticky transfer tape and you have to reverse the design before cutting so it cuts on the back of the vinyl the right way. 

It cut really easily, but when it came to peeling it off I was worried as it didn't seem to have cut through the vinyl properly, but that was just the way I'd tried to pull it off! Phew! It made it much easier using my weeding tool from the Cricut tool set.

I realised that the comic book words were a bit too long to fit nicely on the baby grow so I chopped off the bottom two but can use these for other projects at a later date.

I thought I'd be clever and use my mini-iron instead of getting my normal iron out, as the small one could be used just where needed, but unfortunately it just wasn't hot enough.

To use the vinyl you have to first iron the area you're going to put the vinyl on, to heat it up, and then place the vinyl on and iron. It was really easy with a normal iron and took no time at all.

Here are the final baby grows. Sorry for the bad light. I was doing it in the kitchen and had the iron on the side cooling and didn't want to leave it in case a kitten went near it.

I'm really pleased with how these turned out. They have a really professional finish and feel really nice.

Mickey Mouse Birthday Card

I made this card using the Mickey Font Cricut Cartridge and my Cricut Mini, as well as Craft Artist to colourist the background. The background was a wallpaper I found online in black and grey and using Craft Artist I made it blue and printed it onto Centura Pearl card to give it a glittery sheen. I then cut Mickey out on my cricut using coloured card, but for the face I didn't have the right skin tone so used white card and coloured it with Spectrum Noir FS2. 

I love this card, especially the Mickey Mouse head (which you wouldn't think would be on a 'font' cartridge) - I got this quite cheap as well as another disney font cartridge as people didn't bid on them on eBay as they were just advertised as 'font' but have lots of shapes and characters