The Oversized Puff Vinyl Hack Most People Miss

I have a little bit of a secret. I accidentally told a little bit of a fib. Oh, oh, I wanna set you down, guys, and we're gonna check these cuts real quick. But that is the importance of checking your cuts before you unload. This is real life crafting, y'all. Oh my gosh, y'all, I don't know if you all are seeing the same thing that I am, but I'm seeing oversized designs all over my feed. And not only that, I'm seeing oversized puff designs all over my social media feed. So because of that, I thought what better time than now to teach you all everything that you need to know on how to create oversized designs with puff vinyl. And you know, I had to go ahead and throw in a trendy camo shirt with it. And in today's tutorial, I'm going to be teaching you everything you need to know about how to recreate something just like this. And y'all, I have a little bit of a secret. You don't have to create something exactly like this, but you can take this same style of design. And I have a tool that is inside the Maker's Gonna Learn website that may shock you, where you can have it say whatever you want. So if you are ready to learn how to create oversized puff vinyl designs for a cute, trendy T-shirt, stay tuned because I'm gonna walk with you side-by-side and I'm gonna show you step-by-step everything that you need to know. So let's go ahead and get started. Now, before we really dive into our design, let's talk about everything that you are going to need to complete this project. So first up, I have my shirt. Now, this is a camo shirt that I got from Amazon. Let me just go ahead and sit you down so I can kind of show you all. So, because I know everybody's gonna wanna know, because this is not a typical T-shirt that we use here, we purchased both of these shirts. These are a size large, so it is more of an oversized shirt. Let me just go ahead. I'll just put it on over top of this so we can give you a comparison. I'll do this one that we have already made. Now, generally speaking, I would typically get either a large or sometimes a medium shirt. So this is me wearing a large. Let me bring you over here so that you can see it a little bit better so I can take a step back. I'm doing this really because this is not our typical shirts and sometimes when you're ordering stuff off of Amazon, you don't really know what you're gonna get. So this is what a large looks like on me. I will say if I wanted it a little bit, if you want it a little bit more oversized, I would size up. If I got an extra large, it would be a little bit more oversized, but it does have a lot of stretch to it. I actually really enjoy the feel of these camo shirts and they have different pattern camos, but anyway, let me go ahead and take this off, hold on. Okay, so maybe I accidentally told a little bit of a fib because when I was looking at this to give you all the actual count of what it's made out of, this is 95% cotton, 5% spandex. This was a medium shirt that I just had on, not a large. So it is pretty oversized. Like I said, this is a medium. You may want to size down if you want it to fit more like I did. Like I said, I'm a typical large in a t-shirt. I like my shirts a little bit bigger, but we did get mediums in these and they do come in different color camo. So this one is a little bit different than this one, but you can choose. Everything is gonna be linked down below for you. Other than your shirt, you are going to need some puff vinyl. Now we tried a couple different because we wanted to do some bright, like a pretty fun bright color. Vinyl Tool Supply has some amazing puff vinyl. That is where we got this vinyl from. So it is also gonna be linked down below. Fun fact, you can get 20% off using code MGL. So if you want, grab you some vinyl from Vinyl Tool Supply and then the other thing, we are obviously going to be using our Cricut machine. Therefore, we are going to need a Cricut mat to put our vinyl down on. Other than that, the other thing that you are gonna have to have when it comes to working with puff vinyl is a heat press. So this is honestly a pretty minimal supply list project. This project is going to be very much a design space heavy project where we are learning techniques and best practices to create larger than mat designs. Now, if you don't have the capabilities to do puff vinyl, you can still create a larger than mat design with the principles that I'm gonna be teaching you today. So if you are ready to learn how to set up a design inside Cricut Design Space for larger than mat projects, let's go ahead and hop over to Design Space and get started. Now, before we get started in Design Space, I wanted to start here on the Maker's Gonna Learn website to kind of explain to you what is going to work for an oversized design and what is not. So if you have fonts, if you are creating something out of fonts, fonts are a great thing to do oversized design with, but I wanna talk about cut files specifically and what can work for an oversized design and sometimes things that can't. When we come over here to the cut file tab on the Maker's Gonna Learn website, some things, like I said, are going to work better when it comes to oversized designs. And the things that you really want to look for are files that aren't going to touch or kind of interfere. So for example, this teacher crew, when you are doing oversized designs, you have to think about where you are going to slice it because you have to get it to fit on a 12 by 12 or a 12 by 24 piece of heat transfer vinyl or puff vinyl. So this, because it is a solid image and there's not really a good place to slice it in half, probably wouldn't be the best design for a full size or an oversized t-shirt design. So let's go ahead and hop back over here to the Maker's Gonna Learn website. And I want to show you a cool little trick on if you want to, let's say, take a cut file, keep the same style of it, but change it up and make it say something different, which is what I kind of want to do today because I don't want to have two shirts that say the same thing. So if you are a Maker's Gonna Learn member, you now have access to what we're calling the studio, which are our new design tools. So if you go to your dashboard, you're gonna see that you can open up brand new tools inside of your Maker's Gonna Learn membership where you can now create your very own SVGs, PNGs, convert an image from a PNG to an SVG or quickly remove the background. Y'all, we are changing the game when it comes to crafting here inside the Maker's Gonna Learn membership. And if you want to get in now, you can do so by grabbing your MGL Plus membership. Currently, we are still in beta. So everything is unlimited credits as of right now. So definitely, if you are not an MGL Plus member, you've got to grab your membership so that you can get your hands on these tools. So what I'm going to do is I'm gonna go back to design space. I'm gonna take a screenshot of this image because this is a cut file. It is linked down below, but it is an SVG and we can't upload a reference image of an SVG. So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna grab a screenshot just like this. I'm gonna hop back over to the Maker's Gonna Learn studio, if you will. And now I want to change this. So I love this saying, there's nothing wrong with it. Like I said, I just don't want two shirts that says the same thing. So what I want to do is I want to change it to say literally doing my best. Okay, so what I have here is please take the reference image and keep the font the exact same, but change the words to say literally doing my best. Please keep the words literally and best large like the words Jesus and King in the reference image and make the words doing my smaller like the word is in the reference image. Make sure that the image is one solid color. From there, I'm gonna select my size aspect ratio. If I want this in a square, a landscape or a portrait. For this, I want to keep it in a square. And then I'm going to add my reference image here. And then we are now going, and one thing I gotta make sure, I do want this as an SVG, not a PNG. So now we're going to generate my SVG. And here is what I got. Now, at first it said generally, and I had it change it to an L. So here's what I got. Now I could go ahead and say, please separate the L and the B. Honestly, I still feel like this could use some work, but I can work with this. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna download this one and I'm gonna download this one to see which one I like best. Another thing about our new studio is the fact that we can go to our designs and we can look at all of the designs that we have created. So now that I'm back in Cricut Design Space, I'm gonna come over here to upload. I'm gonna upload an image. I'm gonna bring my finder back into view, go to my downloads, and I'm gonna drag and drop my image here that I have created. Now I did another iteration of this and I did get it. I think I got it right that time. And now we're gonna go to continue and upload this new SVG into Design Space. So now I can make this as large or as small as I want, but let's go ahead and get a measurement from our T-shirt to see exactly how oversized we want to make this. Okay, so I have my shirt laid out. I've grabbed my measuring tape. Let's go ahead and measure across like how far I think I should go. And honestly, 14 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 is going to be the largest without it like going underneath my underarms. So I think I'm gonna go 14, 14 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1, but I can go pretty large. Like I could go 14 inches top to bottom too for an oversized design. So let's go ahead and hop back over into Design Space and let's really hone in on our sizing and how we are going to break this up so that it fits perfectly on our 12 by 12 mat. So I said 14 1 1 1 1 was the largest that I wanted to make it. So let's go ahead and make it 14. Now what I'm going to do right now, because this V is a little bit larger than I wanted it to be, I'm gonna come over here to Contour. I'm gonna hide all contours and that's the L. I actually do, let's go ahead and duplicate this L and let's go back to Contours and show all contours and apply. So we still have our original design, but I kind of like the idea of doing the L maybe even bigger. So let's go to our original design, contour, let's contour out this L right here and hit Apply and then bring this in. And I like that a lot better. It looks more proportionate, but now I think this B needs to be a little bit smaller. So let's contour out the B, Apply, get the L, we're gonna duplicate that. We're gonna hit Contour on that L and bring this B back and get rid of the L and Apply. And now I can make this B a little bit smaller, which is kind of what I wanted to begin with. This looks more like what I'm going for. So let's just go ahead. I'm just gonna go ahead and get rid of these so we don't have any other distractions. So now we just want to make sure that we are keeping everything lined up, but we're under that 12 by 12 mark so that we can piece it all together here in a little bit. So I'm gonna select both my L and my B because those two things need to stay together. In my opinion, these are the two pieces that are going to help fit everything else together. So what I'm gonna do, because we are sitting under 12 inches here, I'm gonna go ahead and unite the L and the B together where it is. And now I'm gonna start working with my doing my best and the last half of literally. So coming down here to Contour, I'm going to contour out the word literally, and then Apply. And so the doing my best is 7.54 by 4.55, which is perfect. So I'm gonna hit Duplicate on that. Come back over here to Contour, and then we're gonna get rid of the rest of our doing my best. And then we're gonna bring the word literally back in like this. And then that is sitting at 12.18, but let's see if we can make it 11.8. I don't think that's gonna be that big of a deal. I actually think it fits better that way. I really like that. So now we have 11.8 by 2.2. We have all of this is going to fit underneath that 12 by 12 mark, which is how you are going to master larger than mat designs truly. So now that we've done that, we are ready to go to make it. You do not need to attach. We do not need to unite this because we're just gonna pull it back together. Remember, I have the L and the B united together for a reason because these are our cornerstone pieces. This is what we're gonna build everything else off of. And then we're going to, we have broken it down to where everything else is still as few layers as possible, but that we can piece all of this together. So we're gonna come over here to make it. Okay, so we're back here because this does have to still be under 11.5. When I made all of this to fit where this was 11.5, I didn't really like it. And I think now that I have, cause I want this really big, I think I'm gonna put it on the back of the shirt instead. So if for some reason you still can't get it under 11.5, what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna break this one up. Again, I'm gonna duplicate it. We're gonna come down here to contour. I am going to contour out this half of the word here, apply. So now we just have I-T-E. I'm gonna contour out I-T-E here. And then I can now bring this portion up here. And what I may even do is I'm gonna grab the L and the B and this I-T-E and we're still under that 12 by 12 or 11.5 by 11.5. I'm gonna go ahead and combine and unite those together. So now let's see if I can put doing my O even better. We're gonna come down here and unite these together. And now we have it in two separate ones. So we have this one on this side, 9.12 by 6.75, under 11 by 11, and then this one is 6.92 by 10.04. So here, if you haven't learned anything else, I do want you to realize figuring out how to break it up is going to be the best for larger than mat project. So now we only have two different things here that we now have to piece together. So we're gonna go to make it. We are gonna be doing this on a 12 by 12 mat. So both of these are on 12 by 12 mats. We need to make sure that we mirror both of them. And we are gonna be cutting this on our Maker 3 today. Y'all, it's been a hot minute since I have used a Maker 3, but we're gonna be using one today. So I'm just gonna be cutting this on everyday iron-on with my fine point blade. So let's go ahead and hop over to our Cricut and get our vinyl started cutting. So before we start cutting, another thing that you do need to take into consideration, especially if you are gonna be using vinyl and tool supply, puff vinyl, is that their sheets come in 10-inch sheets, which works out because our design is broken down into things that are smaller than 10 inches. So what I'm gonna do, we're gonna be placing this with this mat side face down. This is the carrier sheet side. This is the adhesive side. We're gonna place it with the carrier sheet facing down onto a Cricut standard grip mat. And then I'm going to send it through my Cricut to cut. Now, for this first one, and let me put it on the mat so that I can show you. It was a little bit taller, meaning it needed like the 10 inches. Actually, these are roughly 10 by 12 inches. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna be placing this one like this, where it stops at 10 going across, but has more. So this is going to be how I put it on my mat for the first part of my oversized design. And then I'm gonna turn it the other way for my second half. So here in design space, I'm just using everyday iron-on cut setting. There is no special settings that you need for puff vinyl. And I'm now going to send this through my Cricut and have my Cricut cut our design. Now, while that is cutting, we're gonna come over here to our heat press to get it set up. But before we go over there, can I just say this Cricut, it's been so long since I've used a Maker 3. It is insane how much faster a Maker 4 and an Explore 5 is. Anyway, I still love my Maker 3, don't get me wrong. It is still tried and true, but that thing, y'all, I wish I could zoom in. This thing is so much slower than what I remember. But anyway, she's still getting the job done. She's still a workhorse. Back over here to our heat press. So for puff vinyl, you actually have to set it at such a lower temperature than normal. For vinyl tool supply puff vinyl, we are working at 280 degrees and we're only gonna be pressing for 10 seconds. So while this heats up, our Cricut did finish its job. So we're gonna hop back over here. We are going to actually, remember, do as I say, not as I do. Let's go ahead and check our cuts real quick to make sure. Because like I said, it's been a minute since I've used this Maker and maybe it doesn't, oh, oh. I wanna set you down, guys. And we're gonna check these cuts real quick. Cause I don't know. I don't think it cut through as well as it should have. So I'm actually just gonna go ahead and hit play again. And we're gonna cut this one more time. Now, let me just be frank. I did say we have not used this machine in a long time. There's a good chance that our blade is dull. It is not necessarily the wrong cut setting. I have always cut puff vinyl on everyday iron-on, but that is the importance of checking your cuts before you unload. Because normally, any other time that I cut puff vinyl, it never gives me an issue. So, always make it a habit to check your cuts. She's finished again. She's cut again. Let's check on this time. And let me check an area that I did not check the last time. This time, it looks like it did finally cut through. There's still some snags that I may have to work with. I'm actually, I think I'm gonna send it through one more time just to be on the safe side. So, yes, I did pick this side up. What I'm gonna do is I'm just going to lay it back down there and we're just gonna hit play one more time. And then we're probably gonna change this blade. So, I'm just gonna go ahead and pull our replacement blades out. This is real life crafting, y'all. Although we can prep all of this stuff, sometimes this happens. It truly does not matter who you are. Whether you are a professional or you are a hobby crafter, things like this always happen. So, one thing we here at Makers Gonna Learn want to make sure that you all do not do is don't get frustrated. We are here to help you get through those hard times in crafting and when things don't work, that's what we're here for. So, if you are not a member of our community, y'all, our community is one of the best corners of the internet. You've got to get plugged in to Makers Gonna Learn community. Checking it for a third time in a different location. We're gonna call it done and then we're gonna replace the blade, okay? So, let's just go ahead and unload. The weeding of this may be insane, but before I start weeding, let's just go ahead and let's do a little impromptu lesson on changing your blade. So, this is your housing. To change the blade, you are going to press this down. We're going to take this out. I'm going to take a new blade here and we just use blades from Amazon. We're gonna press this back down. I'm going to click that back in. It is magnet in there, so when you kind of put it in there, it just kind of magnets itself and then you're gonna let it out. And now we have a new blade, so we should not have an issue at all cutting puff vinyl on this machine. With that being said, I'm going to go ahead because I'm very concerned on if this is going to weed properly or not. I'm gonna keep it on the mat for the time being because I like to use the mat as my third hand and I'm just going to go ahead and get all of this weeded. Another little trick that I like to do if for some reason I don't have the cuts or like cut through, but it's not great is taking my weeding tool and just kind of helping it along like this as I'm pulling it apart. I definitely, after weeding this, I definitely think it is a blade issue, not a machine issue strictly because this, it's like the blade didn't want to go all the way through. Okay, so now we have the first half of our design cut out. We're gonna go ahead and grab our second sheet of puff vinyl. This time, because my design is more so horizontally longer, I'm going to place my puff vinyl on my page with the longer side at the top. I'm gonna make sure that I braid this down really well. Now, I am going to be cutting this on the everyday iron-on setting, but now with more pressure. So let me go ahead and get this loaded. And remember, we did just change out the blade. So should not have an issue cutting this second time. Now, while that is cutting, one thing that you need to make sure, because we're gonna be piecing this together and we're gonna have to get this tucked up next to this side. So we need to make sure we're just gonna cut off this excess transfer tape. So we're just gonna cut off this excess transfer tape here. And honestly, you're gonna want to cut it as close as you can without cutting it off because we don't wanna overlap any transfer tape because with puff vinyl, we have to press everything at the same time. It's a lot different than regular HTV. You can't press one and then press the other side. We have to press it all at the exact same time. Okay, once again, we're coming over here and we are checking our cuts. That was literally all it was. It was just, I just needed a new blade. That was it. Because, come over here, let's look at this. Because now, let's go ahead and get our true control knife and cut off our excess here. I want you all to see how much easier this weeds. Look at this. Do you all see this? That is how important a new blade can be. A new blade can definitely make and or break your weeding experience. No doubt about it. It broke my weeding experience the last time, but that's okay because that new blade is where it is at. And there is the second half to our design. So when it comes to placing your design, the reason that I wanted you to cut close here is because you have to make sure that there is no overlap. Now, if you overlap this part, like if this transfer tape is overlapping here, it's okay as long as there is no overlap of transfer tape here onto any vinyl. When we zoom in here, we can see that E is just barely missing the mark. That is perfectly fine. We could even kind of overlap that there, but you just have to make sure that you do not overlap transfer tape with your actual vinyl, okay? But I think this right here is good. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna grab some heat-resistant tape and I'm just gonna tape this together. And then I'm gonna recenter everything on my shirt. Now, I did not put, or I did not talk about heat transfer tape in our supplies, and it's not 100% necessary, but I want to keep my design together right now. And then I want to reposition it. So I'm just kind of placing this down. And now what I can do is I can pick this thing up together and I can just reposition it where I want it. Once you have everything positioned on your shirt exactly where you want it, I'll go ahead and bring you over here so you can see. We have it here in our heat press lined up. Now, I did tape mine down, but we are gonna press this at 280 degrees for 10 seconds, just as is. And once it has pressed, y'all, this looks so good. I'm gonna bring you over here before we reveal. And here is our puff vinyl design, y'all. Literally doing my best. Let me bring it up here so you can see it. I love it. And I did end up putting this on the back of the T-shirt because, I don't know, I just feel like if I'm walking away from somebody, I want them to know that I'm doing my best. Literally doing my best. Oh my goodness, guys, what did you think? I know and understand that tackling a larger than mat project can sometimes be daunting, but I don't want you to think that way. All you have to do is kind of start looking at files in a different way, like, how can I split this up, but still keep it lined up? And just remember the little tricks about not getting your transfer tape underneath different puff vinyls, cutting the excess off, but it can be super, super simple. And y'all, what did you think about using that tool to take the style of a cut file that we have given you and then making it say literally whatever you want? If this is something that you want your hands on and you are not a maker's gonna learn and you are not an MGL Plus member, y'all, you've got to check out that link down below. You can do a trial membership. You can do monthly. You can do yearly. Literally, you are gonna get value out of any tier that you choose, but you've got to get in there and try it out because I promise you are going to love it once you try it. So make sure you click that link down below and leave me a comment. Let me know what you think about this project, what other projects you may want us to see, or if you just want to stop by and say, huh, drop me a comment. What are some other larger than that projects that you have been working on or some tips and tricks that we might want to feature on one of our next videos? Make sure you leave us a comment. And if you've made it this far and you haven't hit that thumbs up button, make sure you hit that thumbs up button, like this video, subscribe to our channel, and hit that bell notification so that you can be notified every single time we get crafty. Thank you guys so much for being here with me today. I can't wait to see you all in the next one. Bye guys.