As craft enthusiasts, what are the things you cannot bare? For me, a mundane glass item must be one of them! A blank glass bottle, mirror, key chain, or mug would be my inspiration for personalized vinyl stickers and labels.
With a bunch of vinyl decals experience, I would like to share four ways to make vinyl stickers! Accordingly, I will use different materials as well to enrich your ideas of custom vinyl stickers. Let’s have a look!
What is a Vinyl Sticker?
You must have heard of stickers, which are classic decals for glasses, wood, notebooks, etc., even from your childhood. Typically, many stickers on the market are made of the paper backing. This type of sticker is beautiful with vivid images but also has some obvious flaws: easy to peel off, easy to damage with paper residues, cannot resist water, easy to fade off, and more.
But now, many intelligent crafters have come up with diverse crafting ideas for stickers on glass and other items: vinyl stickers. Compared to regular stickers we can buy from supermarkets and stores, vinyl stickers are more flexible, durable, and waterproof.
Some of these DIY vinyl decals are printable so that you can freely print and design your favorite images. And others may combine with different pattern features like matte, glossy, color-changing, metallic, holographic, and more.
No matter which type of tape you choose, the salient point is to enjoy the achievement of making your own creation!
Tools for Making Vinyl decals
To actually engage in this project of how to make custom stickers, first, you need to prepare the essential items below. Different materials ask for different equipment.
For adhesive vinyl:
1. Cutting machine
2. Associated design software for your machine
3. Cutting mat
4. Vinyl Weeding tools
5. Transfer paper (can transfer stickers for glass.)
6. Adhesive vinyl
7. Scissors
For sublimation paper:
1. An Inkjet printer
2. Sublimation ink
3. Sublimation paper
4. Cutting machine/Scissors
5. Associated design software for your machine
6. Cutting mat
7. Heat press machine
8. Teflon sheet
9. Heat-resistant tape
For printable vinyl:
1. Printer
2. Regular ink
3. Printable vinyl
4. Cutting machine/Scissors
5. Associated design software for your machine
6. Cutting mat
After you have been ready, let’s start the party!
4 Ways: How to Make Vinyl Stickers for Glass
How to make stickers at home? For people who want to churn out handmade designs or run a small crafting business with no limits on time and place, making vinyl stickers at home must be attractive!
At this part, I opt for adhesive vinyl, color-changing adhesive vinyl, sublimation paper, and printable vinyl to craft custom vinyl stickers.
1. Making Vinyl Stickers for Glass with Adhesive vinyl
Materials: HTVRONT Metallic Adhesive Vinyl, PU Adhesive Vinyl, Transfer Tape
How about making some shiny rose glass stickers for your glass bottles? Imagine every time you pick up a rose bottle and enjoy your drink with it. The color combination can be extremely rich in metallic sheen while you turn the bottle around under the light. Just cut out the rose patterns and transfer them to the surface! Easy and quite romantic!
2. Making Vinyl Stickers for Glass with Color changing vinyl
Materials: HTVRONT Color-Changing Adhesive Vinyl, Transfer Tape, Weeding Tools
It would really be funny to dot your glass vinyl stickers with changeable hues. The first time I heard about the feature, I was super excited and couldn’t wait to give it a try! See, I made some tiny sea creatures and mermaids on my teacup and jug, and the vinyl stickers did perform various colors when I put some ice and soda into the cup! That’s really amazing!!!
3. Making Vinyl Stickers for Glass with Sublimation paper
Materials: HTVRONT Sublimation Paper, Sublimation Ink, Heat-resistant Tape
The beauties of applying the sublimation technique to make print vinyl stickers are the fantastic color brilliance and excellent durability. Check out the glass jar with concise flower lines! You can feel free to put it into the dish-washing machine and never have to worry about fading and peeling off!
4. Making Vinyl Stickers for Glass with Printable Vinyl
Materials: HTVRONT Printable Vinyl, Sublimation Key Chain Blank, Scraper
Create some beautiful glass key chains for your family and friends! Unlike sublimation paper, printable vinyl also belongs to print vinyl stickers that can display a transparent visual effect with vivid images. It’s like a printable adhesive vinyl, also delivering strong stickiness and water resistance. Perfect for making a vinyl decal!
FAQs
1. How do you make vinyl Stickers permanent on glass?
To improve the durability of your custom vinyl stickers, you have to remove the bubbles with a scraper when you transfer the design to the glass. This way, the adhesion of the vinyl stickers can perform better and fix firmly. And even though the vinyl decals are waterproof, they cannot withstand a long-time soak in rain and water. So if you avoid water, the stickers can stay longer.
2. What makes Vinyl Decals stick to glass?
Different glass stickers work in different ways. For adhesive vinyl and printable vinyl, they use strong adhesion to stick to glass and other smooth surfaces. As for sublimation paper, it usually requires heat to transfer the ink to the objects with a sublimation coating. The ink melts and embeds into the coating so that sublimated print vinyl stickers can last for a long time.
3. What can DIY Vinyl Stickers stick?
There are so many items that will enrich your inspiration with DIY vinyl decals! The cardinal rule is flat and smooth surfaces! So you can apply the vinyl stickers on wood, glass, mirror, cups, plastic, books, phone cases, key chains, etc.
4. How to turn a picture into a vinyl decal Cricut?
That needs the Cricut editing software on your computer or your phone, Cricut Design Space. Use the software to print your picture and apply the print-then-cut function of Cricut cutters! Then you will get perfect print vinyl stickers!
5. How to make custom stickers?
You can use Cricut Design Space or Silhouette Studio to design your own patterns. Make full use of the shapes and lines! And you can even draw with your pens, take a picture, and then upload it to the editing program to extract the contour. There are also funny and pretty fonts for you to choose from. Easy to make your custom vinyl stickers!
