Geometric Vinyl Decals . How To-sday

August 19, 2014 separator DIY Tutorial

Geometric Vinyl Decals
I’m phoning it in today, dredging up an old post, but it’s one of my favorite finished projects! When we started decorating the new apartment, this was one of the first pieces I unpacked. I love the way the simple geometric vinyl decals turned a really plain record player into a statement piece that I love having on display!
I’ve always been a renter of various and sundry teensy apartments, which I’m sure you all know seriously limits you decor options. I’ve gotten creative over the years, and one of my favorite ways to spice up a rental is with removable vinyl wall decals. They can be pretty costly though, which is half the reason I got a Silhouette cutting machine. Now I can cut anything I want out of vinyl. Follow along with me to learn how to make fun geometric diamond decals. You could use them to embellish and object like I did with our record player, or you could space them out on a wall like wallpaper!
This tutorial will teach you how to make the shapes from scratch, but since I love you guys so much, I’ve also created a downloadable cut file so that you can make the exact ones I did if you’d like. To download all these diamonds ready-to-cut, just go like Shrimp Salad Circus on Facebook and then click the ‘freebies’ tab on the left sidebar.
*Note: I know I’m a little spoiled with my fancy craft toy, but you could actually just get the vinyl, trace a design onto it, and cut it out with an exacto knife if you don’t have a cutting machine. 😀
Geometric Vinyl Decals

1.   Set your Silhouette page settings to ‘premium vinyl.’ Use that little hourglass-shaped tool to the left to draw a crazy diamond shape. Don’t worry about making it even or proportional. Use the settings from the next image to make your lines thicker. Use that same tool again to add the intersecting lines in the middle.
Now use the diagonal line tool (under the two arrows on the left toolbar) to make little lines to ‘shade’ in one of the quadrants.
2.   Use the top arrow from the left toolbar to highlight every line. Right-click, and select Group to turn the lines into one shape. Make a few more with different heights, widths, and shaded quadrants.
3.   Right click each shape one at a time, and select Duplicate. Then you can flip horizontally and vertically to create ‘new shapes.’
If you want to get a little more advanced, you can click Make Compound Path and then use the arrow with the blue dots from the left toolbar to change the shapes up a bit, shortening or widening the different angles.
4.   Go to the Cut Settings panel (the little scissors on the top right toolbar). Select each shape one at a time, and click the Cut Edge option.
5.   Use the image above as a guide to set your rollers. The right roller will be on the fourth notch from the right. Load your vinyl, and go ahead and cut. You don’t need to use the mat. I used a speed of 4 and a thickness of 10 with my blade set to 3.
Geometric Vinyl Decals
6.   Since these have all their components attached together (no “floating” elements), I didn’t need to use transfer paper. You can just peel them off and carefully affix them to your surface. The vinyl is pretty sturdy, so I wasn’t worried about even the skinny lines ripping.
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* Disclosure – certain links within this blog may result in a commission for Shrimp Salad Circus to help me cover all the time I spend putting it together. See my disclosure statement for more information.

11 comments

  1. Nice “spin” on a record player’s look — using vinyl nonetheless! Cool tutorial Lindsay!

  2. I applied for my record player and I got many good comment from my friends.
    Thanks for sharing!

  3. I love this idea! That would be neat to make some neat wall backdrops. =) Thanks for sharing!

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