It’s officially Summer break at our house, so it’s time to think of things to keep the kids busy. We will probably be taking a few trips to the library so, of course, we need some DIY library bags for all of our books.
We like to make up stories that are frequented by knights, dragons, princesses, and unicorns, so these are perfect!
I picked up the canvas tote bags at the craft store and used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the design in some smooth heat transfer vinyl. And, you guessed it, time for another Silhouette promotion! From now until June 15th you can get any of the following amazing deals:
Did you catch that? ALL heat transfer products are buy 1 get 1 free! I think I might even be taking advantage of this sale! I really want to try the printable heat transfer material. To get the special pricing, you must click the link HERE and enter promotion code CUTESY at checkout.
Now for the tutorial. I used shapes dragon, knight silhouette, magical unicorn, princess silhouette, and apple book. I used Gothic Leaf font for the “O” and Parchment or Old English fonts for the rest (those are both on my computer already and are pretty much the same). Erase the parts of the images that you don’t need and arrange them on the image of the book. For the princess, delete the small details on her face. They are too small to cut correctly.
Select your entire image and flip in horizontally to create a mirror image.
The heat transfer vinyl is loaded without a cutting mat, so be sure to select “load media” instead of cutting mat.
Load it with the shiny side down!!! Don’t ask me how I know this, but if you load it with the shiny side up on accident, you can still turn in back over and cut on the correct side. Better if you do it right the first time though. 🙂
Peel away the negative space from the clear backing. You should be left with your reversed image.
Turn the image over so the words read the correct way, and place them on your tote bag.
Put a cloth over your image and press FIRMLY for 45-60 seconds. With an image this large, I found it best to focus on half of the image at a time. Really press hard and don’t skimp on the time. Peel off the clear backing. If any of the image starts to peel up, try ironing again. Click here to see a great video tutorial from Silhouette.
Aren’t they cute?!
We are going to be stylin’ at the library!
Cutesy Crafts is an affiliate of Silhouette America and will receive a commission if my promo code is used. As part of Silhouette’s promotion, I was given a free product to use. All opinions are my own. To read my full disclosures click here.
Emma
Thursday 22nd of June 2017
These are just perfect as library bags - I think I want one for myself! ;)
Jessica @ Cutesy Crafts
Tuesday 27th of June 2017
Thanks! I have to admit, I feel pretty special when I am carrying them around for my kids in the library. Haha!
Tawnya Haddock
Wednesday 21st of May 2014
I just felt that I had to send a big Thank You your way. I really appreciate that you included some great pictures of the designs for your bags. I thought they were a wonderful idea & did something similar. I took the pic of the blue bag & printed it & tweaked it a bit in Photo Shop, then did it as a wax paper stencil. I was going to just do it as a black silhouette, but my 4 y.o. son wanted colors (he doesn't really like silhouettes), so I it in color & am pretty pleased with how it turned out & he's excited for his new library bag. So thanks again for sharing. I wish I had the cutter that you used for it though, cutting it by hand (with an exacto knife) was a pain, especially the letters. I don't know if the link will work, but here's what I did.https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10203371069812878&set=a.1603451481597.88083.1095413100&type=1&theater
Jessica Anderson
Friday 23rd of May 2014
Oh I love it!!! It looks so great with the different colors. Thank you so much for sharing!
Lauren Lanker
Wednesday 19th of June 2013
Woah, girl! Love these Library totes...and isn't it awesome what the Cameo can do in terms of intricate cutting? I've had mine since December, and I'm still amazed by it. Literally my jaw drops when I pull my mat out of my machine and start weeding away to see that, "Yep, it did it again. More awesomeness." :-)
Anyway thanks for the Pinterest board invite. For some reason, I can't seem to click over from the invite in my email to Pinterest...might you be able to send it again? Sorry I'm having a blonde moment with that.
Allllsoooo...if you're interested, I have a Silhouette FB group if you'd like to join us! We share Silhouette inspiration, tips, coupons, ask questions, support each other...basically, the gals have become dear friends to me, and I think you'd enjoy them, too. Oh, and we do monthly group posts, where we share a Silhouette-related project and link to each other's posts at the bottom of our post...so it becomes like a blog hop of sorts. It's rather fun. Anyway, if you're interested, just shoot me an email at thethinkingcloset {at} gmail.com. And we're not exclusive! Anyone reading this who has a Silhouette and wants to join us can email me, too.
Have a great day, Jessica!
Warmly,LaurenThe Thinking Closet
Carrie
Friday 14th of June 2013
Very cute!! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
Ginger Bergemann
Thursday 13th of June 2013
LOVE these bags!! I so need to break down and get my own Cameo. There are so many things you can do with them.
I found you via Sugar Bee Crafts. If you'd like, I would love if you shared this at my Show & Tell party this week.
http://www.gingerlymade.com/2013/06/show-tell-30.html