How to Use Heat Transfer Vinyl on Wood
As you know the I’m spiffing up my little guys bedroom (read about it here). I’m spending my days painting, sewing, crafting, and trying out some new mediums. I’ve planned a pretty sweet gallery wall for his room and I really wanted to make a unique globe print for it. Unfortunately to make it look right, the lines are really thin, and I couldn’t figure out how I was going to paint it and keep the lines crisp. Theeeeeen the experimental light bulb went off and I learned you can use Heat Transfer Vinyl on wood!!!!
I know what you’re thinking… this isn’t rocket science, I’ve been making signs with vinyl on them for years. Buuut, with vinyl you can definitely tell it is a sticker on wood, the sheen of the vinyl isn’t exactly paint like, and it could easily be pulled off. With HTV on wood, it is so thin, it seriously looks like paint; even when you rub your finger over the edge you can hardly feel the transition!
This Heat transfer vinyl on wood method works perfect for hard to weed images, because the sticky top layer helps to keep everything in place, and you don’t have to transfer it, just flip and stick.
How to Apply Heat Transfer Vinyl to Wood
If you have ever used HTV on fabric, you don’t have much to learn (if you haven’t you can learn all about HTV for beginners from Silhouette School).
You will need:
- A piece of wood, with a smooth surface (I tried, raw, stained and painted wood and they all worked fine)
- Heat Transfer Vinyl from Expressions Vinyl (I tried smooth, and glitter- both awesome) *affiliate link*
- Weeding tool
- Iron on cotton setting
I didn’t do complete step by step, because the process is quite simple.
- Determine your design and mirror the image before you cut on HTV vinyl.
- Apply the design to the wood.
- Place hot iron directly on the heat resistant plastic layer and iron for approx 60- 70 seconds (moving the iron around). Too long will make the vinyl ripple, not long enough will allow it to peel back when you remove the top plastic.
- Wait about 30 seconds until the plastic cools; remove and enjoy your faux painted sign (wink, wink, only we have to know!).
The glitter HTV * actually worked amazing, it took a lot less time under the iron, and maintained its glittery surface really well. No more burnishing raw litter into glue for me- HTV all the way!
I can’t believe how awesome these wood signs look and they literally took me less than 15 minutes to make!
Check out these other craft vinyl ideas
Vinyl Flower Pots- Free Cut File
Kids School Shirts- Free Cut File
Thanks for visiting, hope you have a crafty day !!
Hi Virginia! I love how this art turned out. It such a nice mix of old and new. I am inspired to try out some vinyl heat transfers! Thank you for sharing on #HomeMattersParty.
Love this idea of the heat transfer on wood. Thank you for sharing on Awesome Things Tuesday! See you next week.
I just tried this with stained wood and the stain leaked out over the design, but I suspect my stain wasn’t dry enough. How long did you allow the stain to dry before ironing on the heat transfer material?
Thanks so much!!!
oh no! I actually think my board was stained for quite a while, I just pulled it from the scrap pile!
I just had this issue as well. Did you ever figure out how long to let it dry?
I let it dry until it was completely cool to the touch.
Did you do anything to prep the wood for the vinyl to stick better? Or just went straight onto the wood? Or on the stain in the case of the Explore sign.
Thanks!
Love it all!!
Bre
nope, I think the wood grain helps hang onto the design
I just tried this with Siser Glitter HTV. Love it. I did use a Teflon sheet and pressed for 30 seconds. I did preheat the wood for about 3 seconds. Now to go try some easyweed HTV. How have the signs held up? Thanks for sharing.
I know this post is from last year, but thanks to the internet you made my search a lot easier. I figured it would be possible to iron vinyl onto wood, but was hoping someone else out that had tried it first and could save me some trouble of trial and error (I’m looking to iron vinyl onto some clearance wooden trays as gifts). Thanks for posting this!
Hope you were successful!
Thanks so much for this! I’m wondering how your signs have held up. I have received orders for wood signs and don’t want to sell something that might not hold up well over time.
They’ve held up well. However I would reccommend that you be absolute certain the wood is very dry. Thats when you run into problems!
I know this is an old post, but have you ever sealed over the HTV vinyl on the wood? I want to make some outdoor wood signs.
Sorry I haven’t tried it. Please let me know how it works out. You’d likely be better to use permanent adhesive vinyl
I am wanting to use Chalk Paint on wood but everything I read says you need to apply wax over the chalk paint and I am worried the HTV will melt the wax when applying. Any suggestions?
I don’t have experience with wax overtop. Will the item be touched much?