I made this Dinosaur Drink Cup for a special kid. He was coming over for a picnic and the last time he was over kept spilling his drink. So this time I made him his own drink cup with a lid. He was thrilled!
He didn’t spill his drink once! I even let him take his own personal cup home with him. I got the cup at Walmart and it is a color changing cup for about$2.
What You Need:
- Permanent vinyl
- Something to put it on
- pick for weeding
- light source
- transfer tape
- Download File
Permanant Vinyl (Oracle 451)
Permanent Vinyl stays where you put it and is waterproof. If you do need to pull it up though, it does come up. It is just harder to get off. This makes it perfect for dishes, outdoor signs and anything that will be exposed to weather or the dishwasher. Jennifer Maker did a wonderful video where she used small polka dots of every type of permanent vinyl on a cup and left it in her dishwasher for a few weeks. Watch her video here. (This video is great and why reinvent the wheel?)
NOTE: Do not put permanent vinyl projects in the dishwasher for about a week.
Weeding your Lightbulb Drink Cup Design
This dinosaur drink cup is easy to weed but I will go into detail on how to weed anyway. Weeding is the process of removing all the parts you don’t want. Some people love weeding, some people hate it. For more complex projects I always print or cut a paper copy of your design to help see where to weed. Then that paper copy can be used as an embellishment or a coloring page later.
You will also need a light source. I have a Brightpad by Cricut. (I got mine as a Christmas present.) They are expensive, I know, but you need some type of light source to put under the project. Before I got the Brightpad, I used a LED lamp , a bowl and a piece of glass. It wasn’t high tech but it worked. Any light pad will work. You can find them on Amazon for about $20.
Additionally, you will need a sharp pick. I have a set from Harbor Freight that cost 2 or 3 dollars. I also have just found a pinpen from 651 vinyl that works great too. While you are there look at the weeding ring. It is wonderful! I used to stick the weeded vinyl to my hand but my skin had a reaction to the sticky. The weeding ring solved that.
There really is no “trick” to weeding. You get better at it the more you do. And some projects go better than others. Some manufacturers make what they call easy weed. I haven’t noticed a difference.
Weeding Tips
I saw a neat idea on Facebook. Rub some baby powder on the vinyl before weeding. It makes the lines stand out so you can see them better but these lightbulbs are easy to weed. I tried it on another project and didn’t even need the Brightpad. Just be sure to wipe the baby powder off before you stick your vinyl to the transfer tape
Transferring Your Dinosaur Drink Cup Design
Once your project is weeded place the transfer tape over the design sticky side down. Rub it very well to attach the vinyl from the backing to the transfer medium. You may need several pieces of painter’s tape but luckily it sticks to itself. Squeegee the painter’s tape to the vinyl with a good deal of pressure with your finger. Then pull up the transfer tape slowly. If pieces don’t stick as you go, replace the transfer tape and rub with your fingernail. You definitely don’t want to go too fast.
Transferring off the transfer tape
Once the vinyl is on the painter’s tape, notice that the vinyl is sticky. Place it over your project. When you have it lined up correctly, squeegee the vinyl to your project with your finger. Pull off the painter’s tape (parallel to your project). Re-squeegee anything that doesn’t come off the transfer tape.
If you get bubbles, this trick works well. Take a hair drier and heat the vinyl then smooth it out with a squeegee. The heat makes the vinyl flexible and shrinks it a little.
And your Dinosaur Drink Cup is done!
Dinosaur Fun Facts to Stump Your Kids With
- Turns Out The T-Rex Wasn’t Actually The Dinosaur King; That’s The Spinosaurus at somewhere between 41 and 59 ft. long and weighing up to 23 tons!
- Some dinosaurs, like the Compsognathus, were actually about the same size as a chicken!
- Pterodactyls were flying reptiles that lived during the age of dinosaurs.
- The Apatosaurus is actually the “correct” name for the well-known Brontosaurus.
- The Velociraptor was actually a lot smaller, closer to the size of a turkey than a human, with a fully-grown Velociraptor only standing about 6 ft. tall and weighing just 33 pounds!
- Scientists have discovered that Stegosaurus plates actually rose out of the dinosaur’s skin, meaning they were not attached to the Stegosaurus’ skeletal frame.