A Beach Bag and Heat Transfer Vinyl Tips

I shared the beginnings of this bag in my favorites last Friday, and in less than a week the bag is done! I've talked a little bit about my cricut design process in the past, so I won't go into too much detail about the design of this bag. However, I have discovered some tricks when working with Heat Transfer Vinyl (iron-on vinyl) that I am very excited to share!

I ordered this beach Bag from The Tote Bag Factory & I could not be more impressed with them! The bag is great quality - it feels sturdy and durable to hold! They delivered super fast (without additional shipping fees) and their customer service was fantastic! They have so many bags to choose from and I am so excited to use their products again in the future!! You can shop the Tote Bag Factory HERE.

I ordered the 'Small Heavy Canvas Deluxe Tote Bag' because the dimensions seemed a little more beach bag friendly than the Jumbo version. Both the small and the jumbo version of this bag have a pocket on the exterior of the bag and a zippered pocket on the inside of the bag.

This was my initial design in my cricut design space, I ended up playing with the lettering a little - I moved the waves to the bottom and took away the little banner so that the '& I must go' was cut out of the waves. I love that the cricut design space allows me to save original designs but continue working on the same project! I also love that I can leave the project for a bit, then come back to it and make changes if need be!

I cut this decal out of a navy vinyl and a turquoise vinyl. I used Siser HTV vinyl for the first time and loved it! It is a little small for the cricut mat but it cut out just fine!

I cut out 2 identical decals and stuck them on each side of the bag - I wanted it to look uniform on both sides! It was definitely more difficult to iron on the decal to the fabric of this bag compared to a t-shirt. But these two tips made all the world of difference...

1. Put an old cookie sheet under the item you are ironing onto! The cookie sheet gets hot and heats the HTV vinyl from both sides. I have found that the decal sticks much faster with heat from both sides! It is espeically fast when you are ironing on to a thin t-shirt!

2. Use parchment paper over the top of the decal. This allows you to see through to what you are ironing and the parchment paper conducts heat so well!

This tips might be old news, but they are new to me! And they make the ironing process so much faster! Let me know if you have any tried and true tips when you're cricut-ing! :)

See you tomorrow!