Stay pinch free this St. Patrick’s Day with these DIY shamrock shoes! I love thinking about all the variations of these shoes that you could make for other holidays – the possibilities are endless! Grab your Silhouette CAMEO and follow this step by step tutorial for how to apply heat transfer vinyl on canvas shoes.
Supplies needed to make your own Shamrock Shoes
Silhouette CAMEO 3 or any craft cutting machine
Heat Transfer Vinyl (I used Dark Teal, Mint and Green)
Teflon sheet or thin cloth for pressing
Mini Iron
Weeding hook
Plain canvas shoes
Scissors
How to make your own Shamrock Shoes
Step 1: Arrange your shamrock design in Silhouette Studio. I chose a couple different shamrock designs, scaled them down to just under an inch wide/tall and lined them up before cutting so that I would have a variety of shapes and colors to put on the shoes. Once you have arranged your shamrocks, load your Heat Transfer Vinyl into your machine, backing side up. Select “Heat Transfer Vinyl, Smooth” as your material, then click “Send to Silhouette” to cut your vinyl. Repeat this step with each color of Heat Transfer Vinyl that you are using.
Step 2: Remove the excess Heat Transfer Vinyl around your design, using a weeding tool to remove the smaller pieces of vinyl inside the shamrocks.
Step 3: Prepare your design for ironing by cutting them into individual shamrocks. Cut around the design, leaving a little bit of backing around the edge of each shamrock.
Step 4: Place your first shamrock on the shoe, sticky-side down, so it sticks to the shoe. Cover with teflon sheet. (Tip: Since the backing of the Heat Transfer Vinyl is sticky, you could place all of your shamrocks on the shoe at once, cover, and iron them at once, if you’d like. However, I liked doing them one at a time because it gave me more control while ironing and allowed me to move them around and change the design as I went along.)
Step 5: Place your teflon sheet, parchment paper, or thin cloth over your first shamrock and press down with your iron. A mini iron is a little better than a standard iron for this project because you are working with a small, oddly-shaped surface area. My mini iron has a low, medium, and high setting, and I set it at high for this project. However, because the shamrocks are so small, they only needed about 5-10 seconds of press time before they were done. Depending on the settings on your iron, I would recommend working in 5 second increments at first to determine how long your shamrocks will need to be fully adhered.
Step 6: Wait at least 10 seconds for the shamrocks to cool before removing the carrier sheet.
Step 7: Repeat step 6 with the other shamrocks until the shoes are covered with shamrocks.
Aren’t these shamrock shoes so much fun? They are the perfect way to add a little luck to your St. Patrick’s Day outfit!
Happy making!
xo, Liz
