Music Tote Bag with Heat Transfer Vinyl

Product for this post was supplied from Expressions Vinyl. All opinions expressed are 100% my own.

My daughter is a complete music nut. She has been playing the piano for three years and recently took up cello as well.  I know, I am a doting mom and probably a little biased, but I think she is pretty amazing! Here she is playing Let it Go from Frozen at her last piano recital.

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I wish I could say she gets it from me, but even though I love music and have been involved my whole life, I have never understood as much as she does at the age of 12. I thought it would be fun to make her a new music tote bag that she could keep her Piano Lesson and Cello Lesson books in.

Expressions Vinyl has a huge selection of Heat Transfer Vinyl with nearly every color you can think of as well as shimmery and glittery sheets as well. Allie’s favorite color is blue, so I went with Blue Siser Glitter Heat Transfer Vinyl.

I created my file on Cricut Design Space. It says

Life without music would B♭

Do you get it? I thought it was fun.

If you would like to use the same file you can click here to open the file in Cricut Design Space or click on the picture below.

One thing to remember when using Heat Transfer Vinyl is that you will want to cut the mirrored image of your file. When you place your vinyl on your cutting mat you will also want to put the back side facing up. Heat Transfer Vinyl has a backing sheet that is actually attached to the front side of the vinyl instead of the back. This is so you can iron it onto your fabric. Here is my file after it was cut and weeded. I love the blue glitter color!

Put the vinyl on your project with the backing sheet on top (I know it sounds backward).

With a hot iron give constant heat and pressure to the project for at least 30 seconds. This will activate the sticky on the back of the Heat Transfer Vinyl and make it stick to your project.  Careful, the plastic backing sheet does get hot.

When you think it is good and stuck slowly peel back a section, if the vinyl sticks to the backing sheet it isn’t quite done. Lay it back down and go back over for another 30 seconds. Continue checking until the vinyl easily peels away from the backing sheet.

I found several different tutorials online for how to apply the Heat Transfer Vinyl and some said to use a towel between the iron and vinyl and others said it wasn’t necessary. I brought in the towel after I had removed the backing sheet and I wanted to give it a once more over with the iron to make sure it was good and stuck.

I absolutely love how this bag turned out and I am so excited to give it to my daughter. I think she is going to love it.

I actually ironed on the Heat Transfer Vinyl live on Periscope! Periscope is a totally awesome live streaming app. If you’re not on you should be. Once you are, follow me @theblogstalker. I have uploaded it to YouTube so you can also watch it here.

What saying would you put on a canvas tote bag?