We are counting down the days until Santa comes to town! Santa mats have become so popular this year, so I thought I'd make my version using screen printing with vinyl. These would be a great product to add to your shop or Christmas craft fair booth.  Whether you are interested in selling these or making them for gifts, screen printing with vinyl is a great way to make multiple mats in no time.  With one vinyl cut, you can print as many as you need!

If you are new to the idea of screen printing using craft vinyl, this is a great place to get started.

Process Video

Supplies Used in this Tutorial

• Cricut Maker
• Oracal 651 Vinyl – any color
• Speedball Screen Printing Frame 16×20
• Speedball Fabric Ink (I used Speedball Opaque white which works great on dark fabrics)
• Squeegee
• Painter’s Tape
• Transfer Tape
• Blank Placemats (I found mine at Walmart but these on Amazon look like they would work great too)
• “Sweet Treats for Santa” SVG Design
• Screen Printing Press (optional, but a great tool to have if you love screen printing)
• Heat Press, Easy Press 2 or household iron (Learn how to heat set your finished shirt)
• Tweezy (this is the green thing you see on my hand in the video. I use it to collect my scrap vinyl pieces for fast weeding!)

Step-by-Step Tutorial

Step 1: Purchase “Sweet Treats for Santa” SVG file on Etsy.
Step 2: Import into Design Space (or whatever program you use).
Step 3: Cut design (don't forget to mirror!) on Oracal 651 vinyl.  You'll want to use the 12×24 mat for this one.
Step 4: Weed the design and transfer it to your screen using this transfer tape. Apply painter's tape on any exposed areas of the screen where you don't want ink going through.
Step 5: Squeegee Speedball Fabric Ink over the design.  I used my screen printing press in order to allow multiple coats of Speedball opaque white ink. Learn more about screen printing white ink on dark colors >
Step 6: Allow the mat to air dry 2-5 days (I speed this process us by using a heat gun and/or fan).
Step 7: Heat set the fabric ink using your Heat Press, Easy Press 2 or iron.  More about heat setting fabric ink >
Step 8: Make cookies for Santa!