How to create a back to school white board with vinyl

Hi everybody. So I know its only May but it never too early for us small business owners to be thinking about our back to school products. Today I've been working with the beautiful bumper vinyl pack from Silhouette UK. I was really impressed with the vinyl pack as there were 32 sheets of 12 x 12 vinyl and it was really easy to cut on the Silhouette preloaded settings. Its great if you want to use a lot of colours for a project like this one.

Materials Needed

• Bumper vinyl pack
• White board (I got a cheap one from B&M)
• Trimcraft space themed washi tape
• First day of school file

Step one - cutting the file

Firstly I opened the file in Silhouette Studio. I then wanted to resize my canvas to match the size of my white board. To do this I used the page setup menu and used the 'custom size' option on the drop down menu. 

Once I had resized the canvas I resized the file by clicking and dragging on the corner of the file until it filled the canvas. Once I was happy with how the file fitted on the canvas I resized the canvas again so that it was the same size as the 12 x 12 vinyl sheets. I wanted the different parts of the file to cut out separately in different colours. To do this I needed to separate the file into individual pieces. For some reason the file didn't separate when I used the ungroup button so I had to ungroup it using a slightly different method. To do this I right clicked on the file and this opened up the selection menu, I then selected 'release compound path' this ungrouped the elements of the file. 

Once I had the file ungrouped I regrouped elements together such as the titles and frames together and the dotted lines together. I did this by selecting the parts I wanted to be grouped and then using the 'group' button the top tool bar. I arranged the different elements to cut out in different coloured vinyl to make the finished product colourful and interesting. You could also further personalise it by adding a name into the top banner. I haven't done this for this project as I have two kids and will use this board for both. I cut the vinyl using the preloaded vinyl settings and it cut really well first time. 

Step two - Assembling the board

Once I had cut all the vinyl pieces out I weeded them and transferred them onto the transfer tape. I then used the transfer tape to position the vinyl on the white board. I put the blue dotted lines on first so that I could then use them as a guide to position other elements of the design. 

Once I had applied the vinyl to the white board I then decorated the frame of the white board using some washi tape. 

I was really happy with the finished project and I'm really excited about using it when the kids start their new schools next year! 

Thanks for reading the blog 

Helen :)