How To Apply Vinyl To Mugs

If you’re curious about how to apply vinyl to mugs, this post is for you! Today, we will be sharing with you a few tips and tricks that will help you put vinyl on your mugs like a pro. It might seem to easy to apply vinyl to mugs but there are some simple tips that you should know to get flawless results every time. This is such a fun project because it allows you to personalize your mugs with anything you want. They make great gift ideas too.

Here we are in the design space and we have chosen our cut file. We’re going to use one of the collections from Makers Gonna Learn. If you do not know about the Makers Gonna Learn membership, you must check us out. We have over 1,000+ Digital Cut Files, 160+ Fonts, Printable Guides to help you learn about your die cutting machine, and more! If you have a die-cutting machine, you will adore this membership,

So, once we have chosen our cut file, the first thing we’re going to do before we hit continue is we’re actually going to measure our mug. We need to measure this to make sure that we have sized it correctly in Design Space.

One hack I have for you when working is mugs has to do with how to get them to stay in place properly. You need two hands to properly apply the vinyl to your mug, but it’s going to want to roll to one side. Just grab a small bottle of paint and place that under the handle. This will hold the mug in place and make it much easier to work on.

So, we’re going to grab a tape measure and we’re just going to measure our mug. We don’t want it to overlap too much so it looks like it can be about 3 inches by 4 inches. Once you’ve sized your mug, we’re going to go over and make sure our sizing is correct in Design Space. We have a width of 2.7 inches and a height of 3.5 inches so this looks great. Next, we’re going to click “Make it”.

For the next step, we’re going to select vinyl. Now we’re going to head over to our machine and load in our mat. This is a wonderful project to use the scraps that you’ve been collecting throughout your crafting journey. Now, all we’re going to do is load the mat and press that flashing Cricut button.

Once the action is complete, we’re just going to unload our mat and get to weeding. Before we go in with our Cricut tool, I have an awesome little hack for you all that you might not know. Get your little scraper tool here and burnish on top of the vinyl before you even weed it. Once you’ve burnished your vinyl, just get your Cricut weeding tool and get to weeding. You’ll find that burnishing really helps to keep all of the letters down for you and makes weeding so much easier.

Once we’re done weeding, we’re just going to remove the backing off of a piece of transfer paper and using the taco method, we’re going to lay it across our design. Now, go back in with your Cricut scraper tool and burnish some more.

Another great tip is when you take your vinyl off the mat, flip the mat over and lift the mat away from the vinyl. This will help so that your vinyl will not curl. Once we’ve peeled our vinyl off the mat, we’re just going to set that aside and grab our mug and our little paint bottle.

Before you apply your vinyl to your mug, use some rubbing alcohol and clean off your mug where we’re going to apply our vinyl. This works wonders for taking off any dirt or dust or any grease from your fingers. It really helps the vinyl adhere beautifully.

Now all you’re going to do is peel the backing off of your vinyl and if any of the letters want to stick to the backing, place it back down and just give it a little nudge. If you have to, you can place this paper back down and lay the whole thing back on your table and burnish again.

Now all we’re going to do is flip it over and taco it again. It helps us see where the middle is so we can get the correct placement. Then, we’re just going to carefully apply our vinyl onto our mug. All you want to do when you have it in the place where you like it, is just take your fingers and rub all over the mug. This works a lot better than the scraper tool because this is a rounded surface so your finger really does the trick.

Another hack when you’re using rounded surfaces like this or Christmas ornaments or anything like that is to get a pair of scissors and slice the edges of your transfer tape right where the letters are. Not hitting the letters, but just right around the letters on the transfer tape making little slits all the way around. That really helps the transfer paper to go on those rounded surfaces more easily.

Once you feel your vinyl is well adhered to your mug just pick a corner and we’re gonna tightly pull the transfer paper straight down. We don’t want to pull it up because we could risk pulling our vinyl up. It’s doing really well on this mug probably because we cleaned it well with our rubbing alcohol.

Isn’t it so easy to apply vinyl to mugs? I hope that now you have the confidence to apply the vinyl to your mugs like a pro! If you want to check out this cut file and more, join Makers Gonna Learn today!