Rub-on Transfers How to

Hi, Liz here, are you familiar with rub-on transfers? They are an amazing product to up your DIY project! Here is a super quick rub-on transfer project showing you how easy and fun they are…

I have a quick video at the end showing me putting on a transfer too!

I had this cute vintage rolling cart that I wanted to redo.

Even though it was fire engine red, I still wanted to up the decorative flair on it a bit.

Rub-on transfers were perfect for this cart!

I chose some of the transfers from this collection. That’s something that’s super great about these rub-on transfers, you can cut out the ones you want to use. You can also layer them to create your own custom design.

For the cart, that would be covered in the back, I just mostly wanted the design around the front of the shelves.

Once I had a fair idea of where placement would be, I worked on one at a time. First, I carefully peeled the wax paper off the back, being careful to not touch the transfer to anything or it would stick, (really, really stick!) to it.

Then I laid the transfer on the cart where it was meant to go.

Using the little wooden rubbing tool provided in the roll of transfers, I firmly rubbed the top of the protective sheet with the goal of getting the transfer sticker back to attach to the cart surface.

Once I felt the entire pattern of the transfer was rubbed across, I slowly peeled the protective top layer off.

If any part of the transfer followed the top layer up, instead of being stuck down, I carefully laid the protective layer down and rubbed in that area a little more.

This isn’t a skill thing as much as a patience thing. It’s easy to miss a little part and have to re-rub that section, so pulling up the protective layer slowly is a good idea.

Layer upon layer, creating my custom little bouquets with top layers of insects the cart came to life!

Here is the short video showing me putting on a transfer:

The final step is to top coat the transfers with a water based top coat. For this vintage cart I chose Tough Coat in gloss. A couple of quick coats across the entire cart shelves, (not just the transfer part, but the whole red shelf) and it was ready to be put to use!

Here’s the post I wrote with a video explaining my technique to apply Tough Coat.

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For more reading fun, here are some more furniture before and after projects I’ve written about: