DIY Custom Koozies with Heat Transfer Vinyl (Free Silhouette .Studio Cut File)

It's now officially summer and it's about the time when the questions start flying about how to customize koozies with heat transfer vinyl.  It's actually really, really easy to do so today I'm going to share with you this quick tutorial on DIY custom koozies and I'll even give you a free .Studio cut file to make it that much easier!

I got my neoprene koozies from My Vinyl Direct. They're just $1 each, great quality and they come in a bunch of colors including camo.

What makes these blank koozies so easy to customize with HTV is that they fold flat which makes pressing on the design a breeze.

To create a design open up Silhouette Studio. Each side of the can covers measures slightly less than 4x4."  Just keep that in mind while you're designing.

Whale Design: For the whale design I made a 4 x 4 set and then duplicated it - one for each side of the koozie.  Then I selected a single whale and mirrored it so it was swimming the other direction.  I cut this one only on glitter gold.  The rest of the whales were cut on white HTV.  Grab the whale koozie design cut file for free...just remember, it's for personal use only! No selling, peeps.

Download Koozie Whales - V2

Download Koozie Whales - V3

Sharpie Name: For the design that includes the handwritten name, I actually had my friend write out her name in sharpie. She sent it to me via email > I saved it as a JPEG > dragged and dropped it into Silhouette Studio > Traced it > deleted the JPEG > mirrored the traced name > cut on black.   Check out this tutorial for more details on cutting your own handwriting with Silhouette. 

The rest of the design, which I created after being inspired by a custom koozie I found on Pinterest, was cut on white HTV. 

Now with all my pieces cut and weeded I was ready to press.  I used my heat press, but with a lot of firm pressure you can do this with an iron as well.  When I use an iron for HTV, I like to put a towel down on the floor and press on the hard floor. This gives me more leverage and firmness than working on the ironing board.

I started by adding a little surprise on the under side of this koozie - and pressing it proved to be the most challenging part of this whole project.  You kind of have to do half at a time because of the way the bottom of the koozie is folded.

If you have multiple colors/layers of HTV, you're going to press them on one at a time just like you would with any other multi-color heat transfer vinyl design.  After I got the design on the bottom, I put my white whales on one side of the koozie.   They pressed on easily.

Then I flipped over the koozie and added the second sheet of white whales (this side had the spot for the gold whale).  The last step was to put the gold whale into place and press it on - about 310 degrees for 20 seconds.

And here it is all finished...

And on the bottom...

To customize the green koozie, I started with the white HTV which makes up the majority of the design.

After the white design was on, I added the black name with my heat press since I wanted it to slightly overlap the "I belong to" box.

 I love how it looks just like a Sharpie... I dare someone try to take Katie's drink now!

Order blank koozies from My Vinyl Direct  

Here are a few other projects I've done with blanks and vinyl from My Vinyl Direct just to give you a few ideas of supplies and blanks the winner can pick from:

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. By clicking on them and purchasing products through my links, I receive a small commission. That's what helps fund Silhouette School so I can keep buying new Silhouette-related products to show you how to get the most out of your machine! 
 
Thanks for coming to class today at Silhouette School.  If you like what you see, I'd love for you to pin it!

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