Beckie’s Personalised Memory Box

We do Secret Santa with my partner’s family and this year I drew my sister in law. On her Christmas list was a memory box for her son’s baby keepsakes. After a quick browse at a few options on the internet I thought, this is something I could make myself, and as it was for my nephew’s baby things, I thought it would add that extra personalised touch.

I’ve made a few personalised items before using my Scan N Cut machine to cut designs from vinyl and transfer onto items such as boxes, cups and tshirts, so this was definitely the best way to go.

To make the box I needed a plain pine wooden box and some vinyl. When I have used vinyl on wooden boxes before I have worked with both self adhesive vinyl, which works great and basically just transfers onto the box like a sticker. Or, I have used heat transfer vinyl (HTV). HTV is primarily used for fabric items, but it does work very well on any item you can apply heat to, wooden boxes being one of them. I’ve found I prefer to use HTV on wood as when the glue melts and dries, it gives a more permanent hold to the wood. Also, as the HTV is slightly thinner, the grain of the wood can show through the vinyl which I quite like and it can give a more painted finish. I purchased a large pine wooden box with a clasp from Amazon for about £30 and some Premium Heat Transfer Vinyl in Metallic Copper.

So, I have my materials, now I need my design. I created my design on Adobe Illustrator. I included details such as my nephew’s full name, his date of birth, the time of his birth and his birth weight.  As a graphic designer this is my go-to programme for creating designs but I could have also done this on Canvas Workspace. Once my design was finalised, I saved it as an SVG file and opened it up on my Scan N Cut machine. When working with HTV you have to cut on the reverse side, which means you need to flip your design before you cut. Place your HTV with the clear plastic backing face down on the mat, and the vinyl side up, then cut your design. It’s ways a good idea to do a test cut if you’ve never worked with the vinyl before to make sure your settings are correct. You only want to cut through the vinyl, not the clear backing sheet.

Once cut, you need to peel away the excess vinyl from around your design. You can do this with anything with a sharp point such as a pokey tool or tweezers. When all excess vinyl is removed, place the vinyl design onto your box. The clear backing is sticky so this helps keep it in place and smooth down once you are happy with the positioning. Cover the design with a piece a parchment or greaseproof paper and use an iron or heat press to melt the vinyl onto the box. If using an iron, use a medium heat with no steam and firm pressure and run over the design for about 20-30 seconds. Check the design to see if the clear backing comes away from the design, if there are any areas that don’t, run the iron back over it for a few more seconds.

Once you’re confident all areas of the vinyl are stuck, peel off the plastic backing. If you feel any areas need a bit more heat, place the parchment back over the design and run over with the iron again. And that’s how you use heat transfer vinyl to personalise a wooden box!