If you have ever gotten, or given, an extra large gift at the holidays then you will love this project. I took the idea of a Santa sack and gave it a Disney spin to create a Disney Santa sack! Since this is made with a sturdy laundry bag and iron on vinyl, it will last and you can use it over and over again!
Additionally, this project will show you how you can start off with an idea or see something and use it as an inspiration for your own unique design! I love to do this for my projects. If you would like to see another example of how I combined images for my own unique design check out my dinosaur shirt HERE.
By the way, this post contains Affiliate Links to companies I have partnered with, such as Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for shopping with my links!
Disney Santa Sack Supplies
To make shopping easier for you, I have many of these supplies in my Amazon store HERE
- Large bag – I used a laundry bag from Heat Transfer Warehouse
- Cricut
- Cricut cutting mat
- Weeding tools
- Heat Resistant Tape
- Heat Transfer Vinyl, also called HTV or iron on vinyl
I prefer to use Siser brand vinyl for my iron on projects. I feel that is the best quality brand of iron on vinyl out there, and it weeds the easiest. For permanent vinyl I like StarCraft vinyl.
Over the years I have gotten Siser vinyl from a variety of places, including My Craft Source. When you shop at My Craft Source be sure to use code ShawnMosch to get 5% off your order!
Another retailer that I work with is Vinyl and Tulle. Use coupon code SHAWNMOSCH to save 10% off your order! They ship WORLD WIDE!
Madame Blanks is my recommended source for for my Canadian followers! Use coupon code SHAWN10 to save 10% off your order of StarCraft products!
I love that I can order large rolls or small sheets when ordering Siser online. This can give you a larger variety of choices and allow to to save money on larger orders. To make sure you are getting the best price for your vinyl, make sure to check out my Vinyl Buyers Guide.
Finding Images for your Disney Santa Sack Design
For me, this is the part of this project that allows me to use my creativity and really make something that is unique! I started by searching online for some images of Santa sacks to get ideas and inspiration for my design. This is kind of like making a sample or inspiration board. It is just collecting ideas of what you like.
Next I clicked on the images button in Cricut Design Space and started to look for images that were similar to my inspiration images. I knew I wanted something with a postmark or postage stamp type image. Another place you can look for images are places that have svg files. If you have never used a svg file, make sure to check out this information HERE.
For my final image, it is a combination of images that I found on sites that have svg files, images that can be found in Cricut Design Space along with some fonts from Cricut Design Space. If you would like to use the same images that I did, I will break down where I got each image for you below.
Disney Santa Sack Images from Cricut Design Space
- Mickey Mouse
- Pluto
- Antlers (for on top of Pluto’s head)
- Sleigh
- Swirl (for the leash connecting Pluto to the sleigh)
- Holly leaves and berries
Santa Sack images from Design Bundles
I used the word Express along with the postage stamp lines from a Santa sack bundle I purchased at Design Bundles.
Santa Sack Fonts Used
- For the word Delivery I used the font Rosify Full from Design Bundles
- For the words Do not open before I used the font AR Julian
- For the word Christmas I used the font Rosify Full from Design Bundles again
If you have never used fonts from other sites, the most important thing to remember is that you need to download these fonts, then install them on your device. If you want to use them on your computer and your mobile device you need to install them on both of those devices. The steps are a little different for each device you are using. I have more information and directions about this HERE.
Creating your Disney Santa Sack Design
Once you have all of the images and items you want to use in your Disney Santa sack design in Design Space you can start the process of laying out the design. For me, this is the creative part of the process.
Since the word Express with the postage stamp lines was a part of a svg file, I deleted all of the parts of the svg file that I would not be using for my Disney Santa sack. If any of the areas you want to use are connected to other pieces of the design you can separate and edit them using functions in Design Space.
How to Edit a SVG in Design Space
How to edit or modify a svg file in Design Space really depends on how the svg was created. This is one of the reasons that I like to teach people what all of the functions in Design Space do, so then they can determine the best method to modify any image. I will go through a few ways I edit svg files below. Remember, a svg is different from an image. If you do not fully understand the difference you can read more information on that HERE.
Group and Ungroup
If you are not able to edit a svg, click on the image and look in the upper left corner of the Design Space screen. Is the Group button grayed out? If it is, that means that all of the different layers in that image are Grouped together. When you Group portions of an image, or different colored layers together it allows you to more easily work with all of those items at the same time. For example, you can resize all of the layers together, or duplicate them all at the same time.
So, if Group is grayed out, you can click on the button right next to it to UnGroup the elements in the design. Now you can work with each one separately. Here is a video that talks about Group.
Contour
The next way to edit a svg in Design Space is with Contour. Contour allows you to turn on and off different sections of the design. Each section needs to be fully enclosed in order for you to contour it. I have a tutorial just about how to use Contour HERE. I like to use Contour when I have just a few items I want to change or remove from a design, or to create layers.
Slice
Another way to edit a svg is to use Slice. Slice allows you to cut one thing from another thing. An important thing to remember about Slice is that you can only have two things selected at the same time in order for Slice to work. If you want to see some of the videos I have done using Slice you can click HERE.
For my Disney Santa sack project, I decided to use Slice because the only portion of the original red layer that I wanted to keep was the word Express and the wavy lines.
To do this I inserted a square from the Shapes button, and enlarged that square so that it covered up everything in the red layer from the original image. Then I selected just the square and the red layer and clicked on the Slice button. Then I just delete everything I do not need, including the left over pieces of the square, from the project.
Adding Text for the Disney Santa Sack
Next I wanted to add the word Delivery right under the word Express. I simply clicked on the Text button in Design Space and typed up the word. It is that easy. Then I found a font I liked. If you have never changed a font before check out my video HERE on fonts. I used the font Rosify Full from Design Bundles
I wanted this image to fill as much of the front of the Disney Santa sack as possible, so I set the width for both the word Express and Delivery at 11 1/2″ wide. This is the largest you can cut on a standard 12 x 12 Cricut cutting mat.
Next I jumped down to the bottom of my design and typed up the words for the Do Not Open Before Christmas portion of my Santa sack. I did this with two separate text boxes, so that I could use different fonts for each line. This also allowed me to make each line of text a different color. For the words Do not open before I used the font AR Julian For the word Christmas I used the font Rosify Full from Design Bundles again so it matched the word Delivery at the top of the Disney Santa sack.
Adding Mickey and Pluto to the Disney Santa Sack
Now for the best part of this project, or at least I think it is the best part! Adding the Mickey Mouse and Pluto images to really make this a Disney Santa sack!
Since I have already designed this exact same image that I used on a kitchen towel in an earlier project, I am not going to go through all of the step by step directions again here. Please check out my Mickey and Pluto Christmas Towel tutorial HERE. You can also watch the video for this process below.
I decided to add a border of holly leaves just above the words at the bottom of my Disney Santa sack just to add a little more of a Christmas touch to the design. Now we are ready to cut all of this out of HTV/iron on vinyl.
I prefer to use Siser brand vinyl for my iron on projects. I feel that is the best quality brand of iron on vinyl out there, and it weeds the easiest. For permanent vinyl I like StarCraft vinyl.
Over the years I have gotten Siser vinyl from a variety of places, including My Craft Source. When you shop at My Craft Source be sure to use code ShawnMosch to get 5% off your order!
Another retailer that I work with is Vinyl and Tulle. Use coupon code SHAWNMOSCH to save 10% off your order! They ship WORLD WIDE!
Madame Blanks is my recommended source for for my Canadian followers! Use coupon code SHAWN10 to save 10% off your order of StarCraft products!
I love that I can order large rolls or small sheets when ordering Siser online. This can give you a larger variety of choices and allow to to save money on larger orders. To make sure you are getting the best price for your vinyl, make sure to check out my Vinyl Buyers Guide.
For cutting, place the shiny side of the vinyl down on the cutting mat. This is the carrier sheet, which is actually the front of the vinyl. Next make sure to mirror your image. This is because you are going to be cutting through the vinyl from the back, so if you do not mirror your image it will be backwards when you press it on the bag. I point out the Mirror button with a blue arrow in the image below.
NOTE: You will have to click Mirror for each and every layer in your project!
After the layers are cut, you can start the process of weeding. Weeding is removing the portions of the vinyl that you do not want to press on to the final project. Make sure to get things like the centers of the letters like A, R, D and O. Once the image is weeded, I like to flip it over and look at it from the front side. Hold it up to the light and check that you did not miss any pieces.
Pressing the Disney Santa Sack Design
Once everything is weeded, it is time to lay out the pieces on the laundry bag. I ironed the bag first to get out the wrinkles, and then placed it on a flat surface. I took my time to measure and center the design on the side of the bag. Because the images were large, and broken up into sections by color, as I placed the pieces on the laundry bag I taped them down with a heat resistant tape. This will make it easier to move the whole project to my heat press.
One thing I would like to point out in the picture above, you can see that I did not put the full row of holly leaves on the bag right away. That is because of how close I wanted the leaves to be when I lined them up, and I did not want to trim down the carrier sheet to make things fit perfect.
Place a piece of parchment paper over the top of the design before you begin pressing. This helps to protect your design from direct heat.
Please refer to the packaging for the brand of vinyl you are using for the correct pressing time and temperature. For the lower half of my Disney Santa sack, since I knew I was going to have to press it again for the rest of the holly leaves I did not press it for the full recommending time. I did about 10 seconds, then I peeled off the carrier sheet and allowed the whole thing to cool down before placing the remaining pieces.
Place the next section of the design down and tape that in place. Put the parchment paper over the design again and press. That is it! You now have the perfect way to quickly and easily wrap those holiday gifts!
I hope that you enjoyed this post, and that you stop back every day from now until Christmas to see what other Disney Christmas crafts I have planned for you! I am doing 25 Days of Disney Christmas Crafts to inspire you to add more Disney to your life while using your Cricut for crafting. If you want to see the whole line up of crafts you can go HERE.
