Easy to Make Mason Jar Party Favors Using Your Cricut

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My Cricut Explore Air 2 is still fairly new and I have done a lot of paper cutting and even some print and cut items. Here are some easy to make mason jar party favors.

My son’s birthday party was coming up so I decided to try my hand at doing a vinyl project for the party favors. At our local dollar store, we found some mason jar straw mugs. We decided on red and blue as I knew that I could easily get vinyl in those colours.

Types of Vinyl

There are a number of different kinds and brands of vinyl. Oracal and Siser seem to be the most popular brands. There are 4 basic kinds of vinyl. Here they are and what they are used for.

• Permanent (Oracal 651) – use for outdoor items (windows, car decals) and things like water bottles or mugs
• Removable (Oracal 631) – use indoors for things you want to be able to remove in future (like walls); also good for making stencils as it won’t permanently stick to whatever it is you are stencilling.
• High Performance (Oracal 751 or 951) – use outdoors for boats
• Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV) – use for fabric/clothing; best applied with a heat press (mixed/inconsistent success when it comes to using a household iron).

Michaels has limited stock in the Oracal 651 and 631 and carries only some basic colours. For both, there is white, black, red, pink, light green/turquoise, blue, silver and gold. It is sold in 12 x 12 sheets. I was lucky to pick up some vinyl on sale at Michaels.

Another great source of vinyl is SDivaDesigns.  This is a Canadian company based in Montreal with an excellent selection.  They have many more colours than Michaels and sell 12 x 24 sheets. I got some pretty colours including purple and burgundy. It came packaged beautifully, all wrapped in tissue.

There are also several other sources for vinyl, including Amazon.

My son and I decided that the mason jar mugs would be personalized with each guest’s name. There are only 6 guests so this was going to be a manageable project. I also wanted to keep it simple as this was my first vinyl project – there is no overlay of multiple colours. Each mug will have a first initial in black and the name in either blue or red to match. I decided to use  Oracal 651 as I wanted something permanent.

Start with the initials. I went through a variety of fonts to find ones that I liked. Lately, I have downloaded a lot of fonts – I honestly feel like I could look at fonts all day. These initials were printed in black. I used the “vinyl +” setting. The regular vinyl setting works too – I just wanted to make sure it cut as this was one of my first projects.

A great thing about the Cricut is that it puts all the designs together so that it doesn’t waste any of the material. The vinyl has a grid on the back making it easy to cut out what was done. I have plenty of leftover vinyl for other projects.

Then I peeled off the backing – it came off quite easily. Then I used the weeding tool to take out the centres of certain letters. This is the tool that looks like something your dentist would use. It has a pointed edge which is good for grabbing the ends of those little sections.

Next, you will need Transfer Tape. I got a roll of Cricut brand from Michaels. I have heard that people have had success with contact paper from the dollar store but it seems to be rather hit and miss depending on the dollar store you go to.

What I like about the Cricut brand is that it is clear – so you can see your vinyl cuts and this makes it easier for placement. It also has grid lines which makes it easier to cut out only what you need.

The Cricut transfer tape is quite sticky. Once you take off the baking, you put it on top of your cut vinyl. Gently rub it so that the vinyl lettering will stick to it. Don’t rub it hard (I did this the first time by mistake and it took a while for me to get it to stick to the mug). Lay the initial onto the mug – you can reposition if necessary. Once you have it where you want it, then press it down. I used the Cricut scraping tool to rub the lettering so that it would stick to the mason jar mug.  A bone folding file would also work. Then I carefully peeled off the transfer tape  – do it at a 180-degree angle (meaning flat across the mug itself) and the lettering is left behind. The great thing about the transfer tape is that you can use it over and over. I literally used the one for the initial all 6 times.

Then it was on to the names. We decided to do these in colours to match the mugs. I was a little more nervous about these as there are more letters involved.  It was the same process of cutting, pulling off the backing, trimming and weeding.

Again, the contact paper was quite sticky and I only needed to rub it gently on the names with my fingers to make it stick enough. I used the same piece of contact paper for all the names – the stickiness lasts a long time.  You can even keep the transfer tape pieces because you can get a few more uses out of them. I stuck them to the backing of the vinyl – it sticks but is easily removed.

The Mason Jar Party Favors

We were so happy with how they turned out. They look really nice.

The final touch was filling them with candy – something that my son did and thought was, really the most important part of the party favour. Here they are all filled up.

Lastly, I made a tag that thanked the guests and also gave the recipients some instructions for care. From what I understand, hand washing is best – although I know many have attested to their items holding up after multiple dishwasher washings. Some websites that sell 651 say that it is dishwasher safe. Soaking is a no-no, as also is putting it in the microwave. Both of those can make the vinyl peel or come off, despite being permanent.

I am so pleased with how these turned out. It wasn’t as hard as I thought and they look really great. I hope the boys at the party will all enjoy them. Here they are all wrapped up and ready to go.

In a future blog post, I will show you how I made the most beautiful cake topper for the birthday cake. Check that out here.

Want to remember how to make these easy mason jar party favors? Be sure to save this to your favourite Pinterest board.