Weeding with Scotch Tape
I'm a little giddy today! I figured out a new trick on how to weed those small little pieces of heat transfer vinyl!! I'm so excited! I've always had a hard time with the little tiny circles and lines and when I do get the vinyl out it sticks to another piece or my fingers. I'm not sure if others do this, but I found out that weeding with Scotch tape works amazing for these small pieces of HTV.
I was making a shirt for my sons first day of kindergarten (click here for t-shirt tutorial) and the car he picked had some tiny little pieces of heat transfer vinyl to weed in the wheels.
After I cut out the heat transfer vinyl with my Cricut Explore One Cutting Machine
I weeded around the car and the few big pieces inside.
I was left with this:
I was looking at all the small pieces and was wondering if there was an easier way of weeding them than with the weeding tool. I put some contact paper over it and it didn't do anything. So I grabbed my scotch tape and it pulled out the tiny pieces!! I just put a small piece over the sections I wanted out, rubbed it down with my finger, and slowly pulled up the tape.
Look at that! All the little pieces came up and stayed put on the tape. If some didn't come up then I would weed with my Cricut Tools Craft Weeder
or put more tape down. No more getting stuck on a different part of the vinyl backing or stuck on my fingers!
Here's a picture of the tape with those itty bitty pieces on it. I do have to warn you that it might not work well on really thin intricate pieces or letters. I tried to do this very elaborate weeding design and it worked okay but I had to pull up the tape very slowly so it didn't pull the really thin pieces with it.
Let me know if it works for you!! I tried this method on regular adhesive vinyl and unfortunately it didn't work. The scotch tape was too strong and pulled everything up. So for now it works amazing on HTV though!
Definitely going to try on my next project!
Great tip, thanks!
Earlier today I used a lint roller on some Siser Easyweed for intricate details, and it was AMAZING!
Hi Lisa! You know, I haven't quite figured out why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't always work for me either. When it does, it's amazing but I have yet to understand why sometimes it won't work! Sorry, I couldn't be more help!
Where was this tip yesterday.
Hi Lisa! You know , for some reason it works great and other times it doesn't work well. Not sure why! I haven't figured it out yet!
I'm not having much luck with this technique. Maybe it's my tape. I have the matte Scotch Tape as opposed to the shiny. Does that matter?
Hi Lori! I'm just using basic Scotch tape. It might be the heat transfer vinyl though. I always use Siser Easyweed so I guess I've never tried it on different brands! What brand are you using?
I've tried a few times to use scotch tape to weed heat transfer vinyl with no luck at all. I wonder if it's a specific tape you're using?
The heat transfer vinyl is stuck down onto a paper and it takes some effort to get it off. The parts that the machine has cut are easier to come up. If you try to use tape on regular adhesive vinyl the whole thing does come up. I have only found it to work on heat transfer vinyl that you apply to fabric. Hope that helps!
I am wondering what keep the rest of the design from coming up. I am new to scrap booking.
Awesome, thanks for the help
Your welcome!! It saves me so much time, I just wish it would work with regular vinyl too!
OMG! Thank you so much! What a life-saving hack!