Tag Archives: crafts

How to make your own custom car window decals

This custom, hand-made, vinyl, Star Wars family window decal is now sporting the back of my car!  And I actually made it myself!  I will now show you how I did it, step by step!

To be fair, this decal set not really my own design.  You can buy Star Wars family decals from ThinkGeek and other online stores.  Although that particular set does not come with the AT-AT Walker.  I had to make that myself using white vinyl electrical tape and a X-ACTO knife.  Below is a photo of what my car window decals looked like just a few days ago.

The AT-AT Walker and blaster look like new because they were just remade last year.  The original ThinkGeek decal set lasted way longer than the electrical tape did.

So when it came time to replace the set this summer, I wanted to come up with a better solution than electrical tape for the AT-AT Walker.  I found self-stick vinyl sheets at my local craft store and decided to give it a try.  Then I decided to try to make the entire set myself since I had these large vinyl sheets.

It’s possible to print directly onto these vinyl sheets, but I didn’t have a thin crisp outline image to start out with, so I printed on regular paper what I had at my disposal.  But an outline showing exactly what needs to be cut out is what you need at this point.

I decided to do one character at a time, so I cut out the first character.  Again, this was printed on regular printer paper at the exact size you want on your window.

To transfer your cutout lines to the vinyl, carbon paper would be very useful.  In the absence of carbon paper, a technique that works pretty well is to rub pencil on the back of the pattern.

And then trace the cutout lines on the front of the pattern held firmly on top of the vinyl sheet.

And now you have a light pencil drawing of the cutout lines there on your vinyl sheet.

Then you just cut out that part of the vinyl sheet.

And you prepare the window surface by scraping with a razor blade and washing with glass cleaner.

Then peel off the backing from the vinyl sheet and carefully align the character where you want it.  Let it make contact in the middle and then roll the contact surface towards the outside edges to keep air bubbles from getting trapped inside.

Then start cutting with a X-ACTO knife and peeling away the waste material.

Getting perfectly straight lines and perfectly symmetrical curves takes some concentration and/or some artistic talent.  But when it’s all said and done, these cuts don’t have to be perfect.  Most people will be viewing them from about a car-length away.

The hardest cut-outs, I think, are the thin lines.  Making them straight and symmetrical isn’t trivial.

Getting closer.  This takes patience and a steady hand.

And the first character is all done!

Then repeat the steps for the second character.

And the third character.

And so on.

Until your entire family is complete.  Plus any pets that you want to include.

Now I’m not sure exactly how long this craft vinyl material is going to last out in the elements.  But I live in Florida and I don’t have any shade at work to park my car under.  And we also have quite a bit of rain here in the summer months.  So I will update this blog article as soon as I have an idea about how long this stuff lasts under these conditions.

That’s all!  I hope this blog article ends up being useful to someone out there in Internet-land!

Thanks for your interest!

Kurt

Update: July 2017

I recently added a NASA Swarmie robot to the side windows of my car.  What do you think?

Duct Tape Wallet: simple instructions from a 10 year old

[This is a simple and fun craft that you can do with your kids!  And it doesn’t even make a mess!  You can find all kinds of colorful and cool duct tape styles at the store these days.  I’m posting these instructions and photos for my son who wants to share them with the world.]

I’m 10 years old and here are my instructions for a duct tape wallet.  My dad took the photos and he also put it on his web site since I don’t have one yet.

First get a dollar bill to use for reference.  Then cut a piece of duct tape an inch or more longer than the bill.

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Place it face up so it doesn’t stick to the table.

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You will need two of these.

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Now put the two pieces together lengthwise so one overlaps the other a little bit.

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Repeat so that you have two sheets.

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Now carefully put their sticky sides together.

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It doesn’t have to be perfect, but try to get them pretty close to even.  Also try to smooth out any wrinkles or bubbles.

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Now do all of that again because you will actually need two of these.

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Now cut off both ends to make a nice rectangle.

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These are now the front and back walls of your duct tape wallet.

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A fit check should show that the dollar bill fits inside.

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Now cut another strip of duct tape that is longer than the dollar bill and then cut that strip long ways down the middle to make a thin long strip of duct tape.  Having three hands definitely helps here.  🙂

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Attach one strip along the bottom long edge of one of the wall pieces so that half is attached and half is still showing.

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Now carefully lay the other wall piece directly on top.

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Now roll the long strip over to attach the two wall pieces together.  This long thin strip is now the bottom of your wallet.

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We don’t want any sticky duct tape inside there to stick to our dollar bills, so take the other half of the long thin strip and place it over the first half.

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Now use another thin strip of duct tape that has been cut long ways in half to seal up one side of your duct tape wallet.

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Do this on both sides.

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Now the top edges need to be sealed off with a couple more of those thin half strips of duct tape.  Just cut them off a bit short of the edge and tuck them inside.

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That’s it!  Pretty easy, huh?!?!

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Thanks for reading my duct tape wallet instructions!

[Let us know using the “email us” link or using the blog comments if you have any suggestions or if you made your own duct tape wallet or duct tape craft that you’d like to share with the world!]