It’s no surprise that I enjoy all of the DIY wedding projects that you can do to personalize your big day and now that our wedding is over, I’m channeling my crafty talents for friends! I love the photos with the bride’s gown and bridesmaid dresses hanging up on matching, personalized hangers before everyone gets dressed, but could never write all those names myself because I have terrible handwriting… So I decided to see what I could whip up for my friend’s wedding, and make some hangers using vinyl and my Cricut instead!

DIY Custom Wedding Hangers

What you’ll need:

• White vinyl
• Cricut Explore Air
• Cricut Weeder tool
• Cricut Transfer Tape
• Scraper tool
• Illustrator
• Wooden hangers (I bought these)

First, I measured the top of the hanger area to see the area I was working with.  My hangers allowed the biggest name to be ~4″ wide, and 1.5″ tall.

Now I needed to work on the names.  Since I have Illustrator, it’s easy for me to create images in there and be able to take advantage of all of the flourishes and letter options that some fonts include.  I wrote out each of the bridesmaid names & ‘Bride’ in the font that was prominent from the Save the Dates, Carolyna Pro Black.

Once I played with all the letters to get them the way I wanted, I exported each name as a separate png file with a transparent background.

Open up Design Space and create a new project.  Now upload one of the files you just exported.  Click ‘Upload Images’ from the menu on the left.

Browse to find the file on your computer.

After the image is imported to Design Space, choose the type of image it is.  With just the text, these are Simple images.  Next, click to erase any part of the design you don’t want on there to clear out the background.  If your image has a transparent background, then you can just click ‘Continue.’

Then choose how you want to save the image in Design Space: print then cut, or just cut image.  For this project, you’ll save it as a cut image.

Once saved, the image is ready to import to your project.  After you import the image, you’ll see it on the grid.  Resize the image to fit the dimensions of the middle hanger area, ~4″ wide, and 1.5″ tall.  You’ll want it to be as tall as it can, and the length can vary based on the name.

When the image is sized just right to fit on the hanger, it’t time to cut – click the ‘Go’ button.  Put the vinyl on your mat so it sticks, turn the Cricut machine knob to the vinyl setting, connect the machine to your computer, and click ‘Go.’

Load the vinyl, then click the C when it blinks to start cutting the vinyl.  When it’s done cutting, unload the vinyl, remove it from the mat and cut out the shape of the name from the vinyl with your scissors.
Using your weeder tool, weed the excess vinyl away from the design.

Pull out your transfer tape and cut a piece big enough for the name.  Take off the backing, and place it on top of the vinyl you just cut & weeded, then use the scraper tool to make sure the transfer tape it on well.

Carefully pull off the white backing from the vinyl, so the vinyl stays adhered to the transfer tape.  Center it on the hanger and apply it to the hanger.  Use the scraper tool again to make sure the vinyl is adhered to the hanger well.Carefully pull off the transfer tape from the vinyl / hanger.  Do this slowly so nothing stays attached to the transfer tape.  When the transfer tape is removed, you’re done with the hanger!

After I applied the silver vinyl to the hanger, I wasn’t sure if it was the best color to pop on the hangers.  Naturally, I wanted options and did the same thing in 2 other colors to figure out my favorite.White definitely pops the most on the wooden hanger, so that was the winning color!  Then I repeated the steps above for the rest of the names on white vinyl.

When there was a hanger for each bridesmaid and bride, I was done!  The white really pops and looks great with the bridesmaid dress colors my friend chose. These look way better than anything I could write myself and I can’t wait to see these in action in April!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.