The holidays are upon us and for many of us out there, that means it’s time to get back to crafting. Today we’ll be discussing a problem I’ve seen many crafters stumble with; the trouble with wrapping vinyl onto a curved surface. So buckle up and hang on while we go down the rabbit hole and see what solutions we can find when confronting this crafting problem.
An Ornament of a Problem
Fig A
Let’s lay out the basics first as to what we’re trying to accomplish. To put it simply we’re attempting to take a flat sheet of vinyl and apply it to a curved surface such as a standard Christmas Ornament. Seems simple enough as you can see from the expertly drawn Fig. A. The problem is when we attempt to conform this flat sheet to the rounded surface, many creases will form in the process. This is simply no good.
So how can we avoid this problem? Well, the most obvious solution would to make the surface you’re applying your vinyl to as flat as possible, we can fake this by placing it on a much larger surface, such as extra large Christmas Ornaments and keeping the vinyl itself small. But this is only a simple patch to the obvious problem that remains.
A Joyful Solution
Really, when it comes to solutions for wrapping your Ornaments you’re going to have to make some changes to the way you approach wrapping your ornaments. For instance, trying to wrap large sections of vinyl to any curved surface will prove troublesome, but thin or small decals will prove much easier, as will segmented vinyl- that is to say, vinyl that isn’t one solid shape, but perhaps applied in smaller sections.
In the event you do have a few small wrinkles, you can always try using a heat gun to shrink of the small thin wrinkles.
