Subway Art Christmas Pillow with Cricut Word Collage Cartridge

It's been over 100 degrees practically everyday this summer and frankly, I can't wait until Christmas!  So, to get in the mood, I thought I'd do a Christmas project.

Ever since I got the Cricut Word Collage cartridge, I have been dying to make something with the Christmas subway art on it.  Since I love pillows, I thought decorating a pillow case would be fun. I got the idea to use iron-on vinyl and iron-on flocked vinyl all in different colors to make it more interesting.  My iron-on vinyl is from Expressions Vinyl and worked like a dream.

Here's a quick tutorial on how I did this:

First, using my Gypsy and the Word Collage Cricut cartridge and the Christmas word art image as shown, I made a file with different pages for each color. I made sure to "flip" all my images so it would cut out correctly.  I used the "hide select contour" button to hide the words I wanted.  To see a video on how to "hide contour" on your Gypsy, check out this video by Provocraft HERE.  The Gypsy file will be available for download at the bottom of the post.

Next, I cut out my various colors of iron-on vinyl, making sure the heavy plastic side was face down on the mat.  I used a brayer and sometimes painters tape to make sure there was no shifting (see photos below):

 Take note that I had to figure out exactly where each word art section went based on its color.  I did that by zooming in to those sections on my Gypsy and then carefully laying out my trimmed down pieces.

I cut the word art out using a blade depth of 4, pressure and speed at 3, according to the Expressions Vinyl website.

Next, I did some weeding.  That means I removed the vinyl areas that I didn't want to iron on.  I made sure to get the spaces inside the letters (like the "O", for example).

I used the Cricut tool below to help do the weeding.  It is fantastic!

Then, I carefully trimmed down the sections and laid them on my pillowcase.  I used a quilting ruler to make sure my lettering went on straight.

 I ironed on my pieces from there.  The recommended time was 10-15 seconds, using hard pressure.  I did it for longer since I couldn't press down too hard, as I have an over the door ironing board.  The regular vinyl plastic can be removed while it is either hot or cold and the flocking vinyl (white and black) plastic needed to cool first.

So, the great news is that everything is on straight and it all ironed on nicely.  The bad news was that I left too much room at the top and had to fill in with something else.  The Storybook Cricut cartridge had a nice flourish so I cut that at 2" using the white flocked vinyl.

 More ironing and I made sure to cover the "Feliz Navidad" section with some of its plastic backing, just to be safe.

To finish things off, I added a red button that I threaded with red and white twine in between the leaves above the "Santa Claus".

Pillowcase is from Ikea and the pillow size is 20" x 20".

To download the Gypsy file, click HERE.

Let me know what you think!  Are you a fan of subway art?

Want to see more of my projects? Click HERE to see my gallery!

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