Hey everyone! It’s Tiffany from OC Vintage Charm and today I am going to walk you through the process of applying heat transfer vinyl to tin. I found this cute tin sign at Walmart in the craft section and thought this would make the perfect Spring sign with a little Farmhouse flair. I’m always up for a challenge and absolutely love trying new surfaces with HTV and tin was a surface I’ve never attempted before. For $2.97 I couldn’t go wrong, right?? It turned out SO CUTE but PLEASE take caution because the tin DOES GET VERY HOT!!!
Tools + Materials Needed For This Project:
- Tin Plaque (On the Surface Scallop Tin Wall Plaque for $2.97 at Walmart)
- Color Chimp Luxe 12” X 12’ Heat Transfer Vinyl in Mint
- Color Chimp Luxe 12” X 12” Heath Transfer Vinyl in Black
- Cricut Explore Air 2 (or other cutting machine)
- Cricut Light Grip Cutting Mat
- Weeding Tool
- Scissors
- Cricut EasyPress (or heat source)
- Cricut EasyPress Mat
- Cricut Iron-on Protective Sheet (a thin towel works great too)
LET’S GET STARTED:
I’m the kind of gal that likes to see my creations come to life. I want my canvas in Design Space to pretty much replicate what my finished project will look like. So to start, let’s find an image that looks like the tin plaque and size it accordingly. Doing this also allows you to correctly size your images and takes away the guessing game which I love. It’s totally optional though so if you would like to skip down to where I start looking for the images please do so.
Open a NEW canvas in Cricut Design Space. Search #MC8B452 (Diamond Tag from the Vintage Wedding Cartridge), select the image and insert to your canvas.
Under Diamond Tag on the right-hand side, hide the tan image by selecting the eye to the right of the tan cut image. So we can better see what our final project will look like, change the purple image to a gray tone.
Next, we need to resize the image to 12” X 12” shape. Select image, unlock the bottom left of the image, change the width and height to 12” under “Size” and hit ENTER. Tip: Lock the image once this is done so the size doesn’t accidentally change while you continue to create.
Now let’s find our images. Go to “Images” on the left and search “Fresh Flower Market.” Scroll down until you find the one the says “Fresh Flower Market – Seeds & Blooms” or search image #MB500111 and click on it. Then search for Vine Border image #M71D90F9. Click on this image as well and insert both into your canvas.
Change the size of the Fresh Flower Market image to 8.494” wide X 8.806” high.
Drag the Vine image to another part of the canvas. Ungroup the Vine image, unlock each Vine and change the size to 2.288” wide X 7.06” high.
In order to see the final project correctly, let’s align all images. Select the Flower image and the Diamond Tag, under Align scroll down and select Center.
Move the left vine over to the Flower image and place the bottom of the vine so it lines up to the bottom of the “M.” Repeat for the right vine so it lines up to the “T”. (I’m a little OCD so I changed the green color on the vines to fit my end project better. Lol)
Select both vines and hit “Attach” on the bottom right hand of your screen. This will make it so both vines cut out together in the proper placement. If you wish to save HTV and line them up on your own you can skip this step.
YOU’RE READY TO “MAKE IT”:
Before you do this, hide the Diamond Tag since we only used this as a template and don’t need to cut this piece out.
Select the green “Make It” button. Mirror both images in the left-hand column by selecting each mat and clicking on the circle to the right of “Mirror.” Click Continue. Select your cutting machine, identify your materials as iron on and get cutting!
Place iron on shiny side down onto Cricut mat. Load mat into the machine by pushing blinking arrows and the “C” to cut. Repeat steps for both images.
WEEDING:
Gently remove your HTV from the mat. Take your wedding tool and remove the excess material from the carrier sheet. You may want to trim your carrier sheet to make it more manageable when pressing.
PRESSING YOUR IMAGES:
CAUTION: THE TIN WILL GET VERY HOT SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL. LET THE HEAT TRANSFER VINYL COOL A BIT BEFORE REMOVING THE CARRIER SHEET.
Grab your iron or Cricut EasyPress and set to desired heat. When using my EasyPress I always check the Quick Reference Guide online for updated temperatures. DO NOT use steam if using a regular iron.
Place the Fresh Flower Market image on the tin plaque and apply heat. Repeat steps for vines but before you add heat, use a protective sheet or thin towel so you don’t damage your first image. Since the tin gets VERY HOT I waited until the HTV was cooled down a bit before I tried pulling up the carrier sheet with my weeding tool. Since this is not a recommended surface, temperatures will vary. I set my EasyPress to 340 degrees but in all honesty that was probably a tad much. I think I would start at 300 degrees and go up from there if needed.
YOU’RE FINISHED:
I hope you enjoyed my tutorial! Now that I know I can press HTV on tin I see a lot more tin projects in my future. J I know it adds a few more steps to add a template for your surface but it really can help when it comes to sizing your piece properly. It’s also great if you’re working on an order and want to show a client what the potential item will look like. You can almost customize the design to look exactly what the end result will be.
Happy Crafting Friends!!!
