Top Ten Tip to Save Vinyl and Reduce Waste

If like me you hate wasting media and want to utilise every last wee bit, I have some top tips that I've picked up over the years.  I'm particularly excited about tip 10 which saves lots of vinyl and helps alignment if you have multiple colours.

1. Do a Test Cut

Before you cut the entire design, it's always a good idea to check the settings if you're using a new material.  In the SEND menu, adjust the cut speed, pressure and blade, then in the bottom right corner, there is a 'Test Print' button.  This will cut a small square with a triangle inside.  If this has cut fine, you can proceed to cut your design, confident that the settings are correct.  If not, adjust and try again - use the arrow buttons highlighted below to move the blade to a different start position on the mat.

2. Add a Weeding Box

Add a simple rectangle around your design.  I think this is better than cutting out the vinyl with scissors before or after you cut, as you can space designs much closer together and have nice straight lines which can help with placement.  You can go a step further and add weed lines, further breaking up the design and making it easier to weed in sections.  Silhouette Studio Business Edition offers an automated feature for this.

3. Check Your Cut Whilst The Mat is Still Loaded

Before you unload your mat, it's always a good idea to check and see if the design has cut OK.  I normally just weed the counter from a letter O or such like.  This tip is particularly useful if you're a gung ho kind of crafter and you've not done a test cut!  If your design has not cut through, you can send to cut again and because the mat is still loaded, it will cut in the exact same position.

4. Nest your designs

Try and arrange your designs in the most space efficient way within Silhouette Studio.  Consider rotating some shapes to fit.  The Designer Edition and up has a Nest function, but I find it can behave erratically, so I tend to just arrange myself.  Here is how I've laid out a project I was working on yesterday - I've rotated some shapes and even made a jaunty weeding box to save a little bit extra vinyl!

5. Utilise empty space

I like to utilise any empty space by cutting out extra desgins.  In particular, I like to add little HTV or cut fabric details to the sleeves, feet and bum on baby onesies.

6. Use Arrow buttons to Cut from a Different Start Position

Arrow buttons exist to navigate the blade to start cutting in a different position.  I had used these for adjusting where I wanted my test cut to start, but had never thought of using them for other cuts until I found this awesome tip from Kay over at from Cleversomeday

7. Reverse Weed Intricate Designs

This technique really helps if you have lots of small pieces.  Once your design is cut, apply the transfer tape before weeding to the whole design.  Remove the backing paper and flip over.  Now you can remove the vinyl from the transfer tape, sticky side up.  The transfer tape holds the vinyl in place, meaning small pieces are less likely to be removed accidentally, in a similar way to how weeding works for heat transfer vinyl.  Here's a super quick video

8. Cut SPareS - Especially Dots for LeTter i's

I can not tell you the amount of times I have lost the dot belonging to a letter i and I have to go back and cut more.  Now, if I'm doing a tiny design, I'll cut spare dots, commas etc in case one goes missing.

9. Reuse Transfer Tape and Keep HTV Backing Sheets

Transfer tape can be used several times before it loses all it's sticky.  Similarly, the backing sheet left over after you have applied your Heat Transfer Vinyl can be saved and it can come in handy for lots of things.  For example, if you cut too deeply into your HTV and have cut part or fully through the backing sheet, place your saved backing sheet on top of the damaged one.  You can now weed as normal.  It also comes in handy if for applying fabric appliques and for my favourite tip of all, tip number 10: 

10. Mirrored Print-Out Hack

This is a variation on the hack I read about in Silhouette School.  

In this hack, the design is cut in separate pieces to save vinyl.  A piece of HTV backing kept from a previous project is used to hold the pieces in position.  I don't bother with the sharpie and pen holder though, instead I mirror the full design and just print it on copy paper.  I simply place the print out  on the desk and put the carrier sheet sticky side up and continue as with the Silhouette School method.  This also means that the carrier can be reused again.

This hack also works for self adhesive vinyl.  I did this for a blank clock I got from Acrylic Craft recently.   Instead of being able to make only 1 design with an a4 sheet of vinyl, this hack can fit 5 designs!  Apologies if anyone is easily offended there is a sweary word (it's only half as naughty if it's said in an Irish accent).​​​

I printed my clock design in mirror image and then placed clear transfer tape on top, sticky side up (as my tape is only 6 inches wide, I joined two bits) and secured to my desk with washi tape.  I then cut and weeded each of the 12 clock points as normal (I didn't mirror, just cut in the usual way).  I took each smaller piece and placed it sticky side up, on the large transfer tape with the help of the print out to position it.  So, I had paper, large transfer tape, small transfer tape and vinyl - all sticky side up and ready to apply.

The ring is the outside edge of the clock, so the arcs do not apply to the surface - I just used them to ensure I had placed the vinyl correctly on the clock.  I burnished with a squeegee and then removed the large and small pieces of transfer tape (saving the large pieces).

After toying about with it, I decided that 12 O'clock should be the letter F rather than the exclamation mark.

I hope you found this blog post useful and I'd be very keen to hear if you have any other vinyl saving tips or tricks.