DIY Colorforms-“Around the world”

We have a cheap illuminated globe that’s actually pretty nice. It has glossy finish and so we seized that opportunity to pick up some flexible vinyl sheet and iron on custom art. This actually was a little harder than I expected (this is probably in part because I have a color laser printer, if you use an inkjet you might be able to print directly to vinyl- the heat of a laser printer can cause big problems trying to print directly to vinyl)- we used T-shirt transfer paper and we really had to get to maximum heat and hold it in place with a lot of pressure for a long time. The end result was pretty good, however. Two things I’ll do differently next time around:

  1. I’m not sure if the process affected the vinyl surface negatively but the vinyl isn’t quite as sticky as I’d like. If you don’t press them on hard, they can fall off fairly easily. you want to choose vinyl that is very soft and flexible- real colorforms have a lot of plasticizer in their manufacture.
  2. I used clear here and it’s pretty neat stuff, but I think we would be better off with an opaque background- white would likely be the default choice but by all means get creative if you like.

The big deal with this is that Delilah took to it right away- I chose characters that correspond to particular countries or regions, so for example, when we go to stick on a penguin, she knows to put him in his home in Antarctica- unless of course he’s going to visit Russia or Europe – which he often does. That penguin is very adventurous.

This started out with Disney characters- she’s still a fan of that of course but why not learn some zoology along with your geography?