Make Your Own Cork Stickers

Hiya,  I've a new post over on the Silhouette UK Blog today.  I've been working with adhesive cork sheets a lot recently.  I haven't shared all my projects yet because some of them are for future publication, but I will share when I can.

Last month I wrote in general about how to use the cork sheets. I used the cork sheets to cover MDF shapes, and the designs I cut were quite large. As promised I've returned to the Silhouette Cork Sheets to make sticker embellishments for my cards.

I've discovered that you can paint and stencil onto cork. I've painted through a stencil with acrylic paint and with pigment ink.  The pigment ink gave the neater effect, but not all colours worked equally well.  I like the look I achieved with one of the Tim Holtz Distress Oxides. This was using Broken China. The results were quite crisp with just a cardboard stencil.

However, I like the neater and more detailed results achievable using Silhouette Heat Transfer Material. This involves pressing heat transfer vinyl onto the cork sheets with an iron or heat press.

Here are some beach huts I designed in the Silhouette Studio software. Better still, the adhesive backing on the cork stays sticky, so are easy to apply to projects - no additional adhesive required. I did find it a little time consuming to apply the vinyl colours to one cork piece at a time though and looked for a better way to decorate a whole sheet of stickers at once.

For my Silhouette post I made a selection of sweet themed stickers using some of the simpler elements from designs purchased from the Silhouette Design Store:

• Gingerbread Peppermint & Candy Cane by Kristen Magee #35782
• Valentine Choc Rack Tall Card by Snapdragon Snippets #73620
• Filofax Planner Donut Bookmark Clip by PPbN Designs #76883  

The post tells you how I made and cut the cork stickers and then decorated them with two layers of HTV one whole sheet of stickers at a time. Yes, with this method I decorated 15 stickers in just two pressings - a huge time-saving!

It also gives cut settings for both Cameo and Curio, and details on how to press the designs.

To use the stickers, its simply a matter of peeling off the backing paper. They can be used on cards, scrap layouts and other papercrafting projects.  I made a few into planner clips. The cork sticks really well when a pair are used back-to-back, securing the clip in between.

I hope you'll experiment too. I'd love to know how you get on and what you make. You could share pics on my NEW Facebook page Janet Packer CraftingQuine.