Print Your Own Decals Easily! Video Tutorial on How to Design One

Hi Friends!  Have you ever wondered how to print your own decals?  Decals are so easy to print and you can design whatever you like to apply to mugs, tumblers, metal, wood, etc. 

They are perfect for making unique and personalized gifts when you don’t own a cutting machine.  I made these cute his and hers mugs using water slide paper and my printer. So stay with me to find out how to print your own decals and design an image!!

 

On my last post, I showed you how to make the Mr. and Mrs. side of the mugs and had a FREE download for you.  You can find the his and hers mugs post here.

 

Materials Needed to Print Your Own Decals (With Inkjet)

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links from Amazon. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my links (purple text).

• water slide decal paper – I get mine off Amazon here
• Rustoleum Gloss Protective Enamel
• Inkjet Printer

Today I’m going to show you how to design the photo in two different softwares.  If you don’t have CDS, scroll down to option 2!

Option 1:  Cricut Design Space Tutorial

 If you have a Cricut (and I think everyone should because it’s so awesome!  You can find my roundup of amazing Cricut ideas by clicking here!)  then watch the quick video tutorial at the top of the page on how to design in CDS. 

Once CDS has you print make sure you let it dry, then spray three layers of enamel on it, (read post here on how to spray enamel on it) let it dry fully (30 minutes or so) and then go back and put it on your mat and have the Cricut cut it out for you if you want. 

Alternatively, you can just cut out the heart with scissors since this is a very easy cut!   (Sorry, the video goes out of sync in the middle!  I tried to fix it but couldn’t:(

Option 2:  Google Slides Tutorial

Google slides is free software along with Google docs.  If you don’t know what it is, just google “google slides” HaHa!! 

I’m not an expert on using it but I’ll show you how I made a heart design.  The hardest part was figuring out sizing.  Like I say in the video, print it out on PLAIN paper first to figure out your sizing.  Then print your own decals on the waterslide paper.

Note**  In the video, I said to flip the paper over to print the second page.  I meant to put it in the opposite way so that it will print on another end of same shiny side**

So once you’ve got your design all ready it’s time to print your own decals.  Now you want to make sure you are printing on the glossy side of the waterslide paper. 

For my printer, that means I put the glossy side facing up in the rear tray but not all printers are the same so make sure you figure out which way to print it.  I also set my print setting to “photo glossy paper” so it prints at the best quality.

Hop on over to my post here to learn how to spray the enamel on the decals and then apply them to the mugs.  There is a video tutorial on how to apply also (it’s near the bottom!)

Once you have the decals on and they dry for a few hours you can bake them in the oven.  Put them in cold oven, turn on to 300F, let bake for 20-30 min then let them cool in oven. 

These are NOT DISHWASHER safe so make sure you put a little note in your gift to hand wash only!  I put all mine in the dishwasher to check and some only got a little messed up and some peeled all the way off. 

The only ones that didn’t come off were the ones I made with a paint pen.  (Tutorial also on the previous post!)

You can use this method to make so many different kinds of gifts, not just mugs.  Learning to print your own decals is easy, right?  Here are some fun teacher mugs I made with waterslide decals.

Thanks for stopping by.  If you’d like to save this post for later, you can Pin it now!  Thanks so much!