Valentine Plate (and how-to transfer tape)

You know me and quick projects - love them.  I cranked this out one afternoon using my Cameo.  Normally I tell people you could cut the design by hand, but this one's pretty intricate, and that would be crazy.

But I still wanted to show off my cute Valentine Plate.  And so I thought I'd take the opportunity to show all you with craft cutters a quick tutorial on how to use transfer tape, because the first few times I cut vinyl/contact paper, I had no idea the dream stuff existed.

Here we go - -

Design and cut your image - you probably can't see this at all cause it's white, so just imagine...

First peel away all the "negative space" - anything you don't want to use - you know, the middle of "o" and "a" and all the surrounding vinyl.  Then you're left with just your word.  Then cut a piece of transfer tape, peel off its backing, and stick it on top of the word.  Then peel the back off the word - now it should be stuck to the transfer tape with it's sticky side exposed.  This allows you to place it onto whatever you want in  one step - - so instead of putting each letter down individually and messing up how it lines up, the transfer tape holds it all together for you - genius!

Once you place it where you want it, just peel off the transfer tape - and don't throw it away!  You can reuse it several times to be thrifty!  And I've heard you can use glad press n seal instead of transfer tape - anyone tried that??

So anyways, take a plate that a friend left at your house (minus all the cookies - yum!)

 Add some vinyl, and voila!  I got the vinyl images - both the "love" in a circle and the "love always" from the online silhouette store.  You can buy vinyl from Silhouette or Expressions Vinyl (which is where I bought my last batch - I like to buy a bunch just to have some on hand)

I had a great helper on this project:

And then after getting her picture taken she wanted to take mine - - so here ya go:

 Gotta love those easy projects!!