Christmas Cocktail Baubles

Instructions

1. Once you have your digital designs selected, separate the colours into groups on screen and arrange your coloured vinyl to match on your sticky mat. If you are doing lots of these it may be easier to cut one colour at a time but if you only have a few it is much quicker to cut all the colours at the same time.

2. Perform a test cut then send your design to cut. Once cut, peel your mat away from the materials and weed around your shapes.

3. If you are layering colours as I did here, select the vinyl colour that sits on the top layer and apply application tape to it making sure the piece of tape is large enough and positioned on the vinyl so you have room to pick up all the colours one by one.

4. Squeegee the tape down firmly onto the vinyl then turn everything over and squeegee again from the reverse. Peel the silicon liner gently away from the application tape leaving the vinyl adhered to the application tape, check the shapes don't lift, you may need to replace the liner a little and press down firmly.

5. If you are layering shapes where accuracy is crucial, lay a piece of baking paper over the next layer of vinyl before you line up your application tape, this way you will be able to line up your shapes easily without them sticking together, when you are happy with the alignment pull the baking tape down slightly so a small piece of app tape adheres to the next layer, check the positioning again and if you are happy with it slide away the baking paper and squeegee down the app tape. If the positioning is not correct you can simply tug on the small piece that was stuck which will come away allowing you to adjust. Repeat this for all remaining colours until you have the complete graphic on the single piece of app tape.

6. Clean and dry your bauble and line up your graphic, using the baking paper again if required. It is probably easier to rub your graphic down with your fingers rather than using a squeegee here as the vinyl should stick with little pressure. As the surface is rounded it is easier to rub down one line or shape at a time and detach the tape as you go because the vinyl will be more conformable than the app tape (which will likely crease on the curves). Once most of the graphic is adhered lightly in position, remove the tape and use your thumb to rub down any shapes which are still lifted, it is easier to do this in a warm environment, if your vinyl is very cold it will be very rigid and won't drape as nicely.