How to Put Heat Transfer Vinyl on Wood Ornaments

Did you know you can put heat transfer vinyl on wood ornaments? It’s so easy and is the perfect solution if you don’t have any permanent vinyl on hand.

I typically don’t keep a lot of permanent vinyl or even stencil vinyl in my craft room. Which is sort of awful and I really should have a little bit of everything in case I need it!

But you know what I found out recently? That you can actually use heat transfer vinyl on wood!

It’s such an easy thing to do and I cannot believe I never thought of trying it before.

This is such a game changer.

I’ve been wanting to try making wooden Christmas ornaments with vinyl this year and found the most awesome cut file to do it with!

I found this Christmas bundle on SoFontsy and knew it would be perfect to put the files on wood ornaments!

The first thing I did was head to Hobby Lobby to look for round discs. Originally I wanted ones with holes in them but I couldn’t find them. So I just settled for these instead.

They work just as well but you have to add ribbon or string to hang them. Not a deal breaker but you cannot do double sided ornaments with them!

Once I got them home I went ahead and painted both sides with black chalk paint. Looking back on it I wish I had done fun colors. I don’t know why I picked black, but here we are.

If you don’t have chalk paint you can use acrylic, it really doesn’t matter. But I would let them sit for at least 24 hours before you put the vinyl on them.

You will cut and weed your heat transfer vinyl like normal and then use your Cricut EasyPress to adhere the vinyl to the wood discs.

It really is that simple!

This post contains affiliate links. I may earn commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. I will never recommend a product I don’t use or trust.

Commonly asked questions about putting heat transfer vinyl on wood ornaments!

1. What tools and materials do you need to make these wood ornaments?

• Silhouette Cameo or Cricut machine
• Wood ornaments from Hobby Lobby
• Chalk paint and brushes
• Tiktech Backlit Light Box (optional)
• Heat Transfer Vinyl
• Christmas Rounds Bundle from SoFontsy

2. Can you use any type of wood for these ornaments?

Yes! Hobby Lobby sells birch wood discs that are thicker than the laser cut discs that I used and they would work well too!

3. What type of paint should you use on the wood?

Honestly, it doesn’t matter. I bought chalk paint at Hobby Lobby but you could also use acrylic.

But you want to make sure you’re doing a very light layer on your wood discs when you paint. I’m not sure how the vinyl would stick to a thick layer so I went as light as I could with one coat on each side.

4. Couldn’t you just use permanent vinyl instead of heat transfer vinyl?

Of course! This is what most people would tell you to do honestly.

But I’m not most people and I’m always a little bit extra…so I went with heat transfer vinyl.

Plus I really just wanted to try htv on wood and I thought this would be a fun and easy way to do it!

Using heat transfer vinyl on wood is a good thing to do when you don’t have the right color permanent vinyl on hand. Or if you don’t want to use stencil vinyl.

You are not limited to one type of vinyl when it comes to wood projects.

5. How do you make sure the vinyl design will fit on your wood ornament?

I do everything in the Silhouette software beforehand so that I know how the finished product will look once I’m done.

For this, I drew 3.5 inch circles in the software, colored them black, and then sized the design down until I liked what I saw. It was really easy and helped me see the finished product before I even hit cut!

6. Do you need a heat press or could you use an iron?

I love my Cricut EasyPress because it’s bigger and I can get even pressure.

But you don’t need one.

I did not use an iron so I cannot tell you how long you need to press the wood ornaments for, but I’d say at least 90 seconds.

Once you’ve pressed for the full amount of time, pull up the carrier sheet. If the design comes with it then you just put the carrier sheet back down and press in 30 second intervals until it sticks!

7. Why did you use a lightbox for weeding?

I always have a really hard time seeing the lines when weeding white vinyl. And more than once I’ve accidentally weeded the wrong part of a design and messed it up.

So I like to use this lightbox to help me see the weeding lines as I’m going along! It’s not necessary to have one but it definitely is nice!

8. How long do you press the heat transfer vinyl with the Cricut EasyPress?

For wood ornaments with regular iron-on vinyl you press for 40 seconds at 300 degrees.

You can head to the Cricut EasyPress heat guide to look up settings for your EasyPress at any time! I have it bookmarked on my computer so it’s easy to find every time I need it.

9. Do you need to seal your ornaments after you’ve put htv on them?

I didn’t! I typically only find this necessary is if you’re hanging a wood sign (like this Hand Lettered Rudolph Sign) on your wall.

For something like wood ornaments, I don’t think you have to take this extra step.

10. How do you hang these wood discs if there’s no hole in them for ribbon?

Grab your hot glue gun and your favorite ribbon and just glue it to the backside of your ornament.

Easy peasy.

Doing this means you can’t do reversible ornaments but honestly…it’s not that big of a deal! If you want to make them reversible, I think putting patterned vinyl on the back would be fun!

You just can’t do a file from the bundle because the ribbon will cover up part of the words.

MORE CHRISTMAS CRAFTS TO TRY

• Faux Suede Christmas Tree Earrings
• Rae Dunn Christmas Ornaments
• Feeling Festive Christmas Tree Pillow
• Ho Ho Ho Christmas SVG Wood Sign (free cut file)
• Merry & Bright Wood Sign (free cut file)