Supplies:

1. Porcelain tile.  Below I will provide some different options on where you can find these.  

2. Glue.  Hot glue, gorilla glue, or Elmer’s glue should all work  

3. Spray paint if making the Grinch or if you do not want the background to be white 

4. Permanent vinyl and any Cricut machine or other machine that can cut vinyl.  I also used an adhesive foil vinyl on one of my ornaments, which seemed to work well also.  

5. Transfer tape   

6. Weeding tools  

7. Felt to cover the back of the porcelain tile (felt is also used to make the Grinch’s Santa hat, but you could also just buy mini Santa hats)  

8. Ribbon or a nice hook to hang the ornament  

9. My designs can be found here 

There are a few different places that sell the porcelain tiles.  I purchased mine from lows.  Here is the link to the ones I purchased and the measurements in this post will be based on these tiles. My tiles were about 3.6 inches wide and 4.4 inches tall.   https://www.lowes.com/pd/Anatolia-Tile-Hudson-Brilliant-White-12-in-x-12-in-Glossy-Porcelain-Lantern-Mosaic-Wall-Tile/1001038754  

Here are a few other places that have similar porcelain tiles:  

Menards: 

• https://www.menards.com/main/kitchen/backsplashes-wall-tiles/mohawk-reg-grand-terrace-amarige-13-x-14-arabesque-glass-and-stone-mosaic-tile/gt70arabmshs1u/p-1455229658219.htm  
• https://www.menards.com/main/kitchen/backsplashes-wall-tiles/mohawk-reg-glasen-stone-white-12-x-10-arabesque-porcelain-mosaic-tile/gs912arabeshs1p/p-1444428393268.htm 

Home depot:  

• https://www.homedepot.com/p/MSI-Antique-White-Arabesque-10-5-in-x-15-5-in-x-8-mm-Glossy-Ceramic-Mesh-Mounted-Mosaic-Wall-Tile-1-13-sq-ft-PT-AW-ARABESQ/205307883 
• https://www.homedepot.com/p/MSI-Bianco-Arabesque-9-84-in-x-10-63-in-x-6mm-Glossy-Ceramic-Mesh-Mounted-Mosaic-Tile-10-95-sq-ft-case-PT-BIANCO-ARABE/205891737?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&mtc=Shopping-B-F_Brand-G-Multi-NA-Multi-NA-Feed-PLA-NA-NA-Catchall_PLA&cm_mmc=Shopping-B-F_Brand-G-Multi-NA-Multi-NA-Feed-PLA-NA-NA-Catchall_PLA-71700000014585962-58700001236285396-92700010802552373&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwuD7BRDBARIsAK_5YhWYcAZvvep5j4E1XmJ-TGC3j1aWW0XCNoUGd6u0vADAZgfgtmsw8DIaAhOZEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds 

 Start off by removing the tiles from the net backing. It comes off very easily. I just pulled mine right off. If you want to spray paint your porcelain tile, then you should do that first.  I used the spray paint in the picture below.  I only did one coat and allowed it to dry for at least 24 hours.   

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Next, I used my Cricut Maker, any Cricut or vinyl cutting machines should work as well, to cut my permanent vinyl design.  In these three designs the black vinyl is all permanent vinyl.  I also tried an adhesive foil vinyl, which is the red tree.  It seemed to work well and I have not seen any issues with using it.   If you need help downloading the designs or instructions on how to cut the vinyl with your Cricut machine, then please read this post.   

When preparing these designs, which you can get for free from my library, I recommend placing your images in the tile template that you sized to match your tile. My tile from lows was about 3.6 inches wide and 4.4 inches tall. You can see at the top of the first picture the size has already been adjusted to match this measurement. This will allow you to see if your design is sized to your liking. I placed all the designs in one file. So, if you do not want to cut a particular design, then just click on the eye icon on the right hand side to hide the design you do not wish to cut.

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Once my designs were made, I removed the unwanted areas of my design, this is called weeding. These designs are small and have several little pieces.  So, go slow and be careful not to remove any areas that are part of the design.  I then cut some transfer tape to fit my design.  I then removed the backing on the transfer tape and placed it, sticky side down, on top of my vinyl design.  Rub the transfer tape onto your design well.  I used a scraper tool to help rub it on.  When you pull up the transfer tape your vinyl design should come up with the transfer tape.  If it does not, then you may need to rub it a little more.  I also used my weeding tool to help left small pieces of my design up.  Another trick I found is to turn your piece over and bend it back, like you should do when taking it off of your mat.  This also helped release the design onto the transfer tape.   

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Now, align your design with your porcelain tile and lay down the transfer tape.  You will then want to rub your design down before pulling the transfer tape up.  I used a transfer tape that was not very stick.  This made the vinyl design transfer to the transfer tape a little harder, but it insured the transfer tape did not take off any of my spray paint from the porcelain tile.   

Once the vinyl was in place on all three of my ornaments, I used my Cricut Maker to cut some white felt to cover the back of my ornament.  You could cut this by hand if you do not have a machine that can cut felt.  I tried cutting the felt with both the rotary blade, that only the Cricut Maker can use, as well as the fine point blade.  The fine point blade was not able to cut the felt.  I also used the pink mat and the same felt for both experiments.  I also tested gorilla glue vs Emer’s glue for gluing on this felt piece to the back.  As the Elmer’s glue was drying, I could see whiter spots where the glue was, but once it was completely dry these faded away.  Both felt backing seem to be holding in place well.  So, it does not seem to matter which glue you use.  I did not use hot glue for this test because I wanted my glue to be completely flat, and hot glue is a bit chunky when it dries.   

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I recommend gluing your ribbon or hook to the back of your ornament first, then gluing the felt backing over that ribbon or hook.  This just makes for a cleaner look in my opinion, but the choice is yours on how you do it.   

Cutting felt tip: Since felt sheds a lot I recommend covering your pink mat with a layer of transfer tape, sticky side up.  Then place you felt or other fabrics directly on top of the transfer tape like you normally would.  Now when you go to remove your fabric after it has been cut all the fabric pieces will be on the transfer tape instead of your clean mat.  You can leave the transfer tape on your mat for a few cuts.  Once it starts to get to dirty/covered in fabric pieces, then you can simply peel it off and add another piece of transfer tape.  However, the old transfer tape may be a little time consuming to remove since the transfer tape will be cut and thus come off in pieces instead of one nice big piece.   

Once the ribbon or hook and the felt backing were all glued down and the glue dried, I added the decorations to the front of my ornaments.  I added ribbons to two of the ornaments.  To make the wavy look of the red ribbon I glued the ribbon on to the porcelain tile in different spots that made it bend and gave it this shape.  For the Grinch I made a hat out of some felt I just cut by hand.  I had some heart shaped red felt already. I then just cut a strip of white felt for the brim of the hat and rolled a scrap piece of the white felt for the ball at the top. I then glued them in place. You could also just buy a mini Santa hat instead if you want.   For the white ribbon on the nativity ornament, I glued a thinner ribbon on top of a thicker white ribbon. I then made a bow, which I glued to the top.

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