How to Make a DIY School Spirit Cheer Bow

It is football season and that means my sweet niece will be cheering for the local high school football team – her Dad is a coach. Now, I don’t know about you, but a little girl with a giant school spirit cheer bow in her hair totally makes me smile and I knew I had to make her one.

Creating a DIY school spirit cheer bow with your school’s logo or mascot is super easy. Seriously, where was this technology when I was on my high school’s dance team? I won’t tell you how long ago that was, but it was before Twitter existed; so, I will leave it at that.

I grabbed a blue pre-made cheer bow from Hobby Lobby during one of my shopping trips. They have every color you could want, and they are near the t-shirts and other wearable art (perfect for vinyl projects).

I googled our local high school’s logo and found a clear image of the Norco “N” and the cougar logo as well. Save those images to your desktop.

Supplies:

Silhouette Cameo
Cutting Mat
Cheer Bow
Glitter Heat Transfer Vinyl
Iron and Ironing Board
Teflon Sheet
Logo Graphics

Step One: Making your school logo into a cut file

1. Open your Silhouette Studio Software
2. Click File>Open>Select the logo file you saved to your desktop.
3. Select your logo on your screen and then click the tracing icon on the right side of your screen. It looks like a loaf of bread and is the 4th one down.
4. Click “Select Trace Area” and then click and drag your cursor over your logo photo.
5. Release the mouse and click “Trace” from the popup menu.
6. Click and drag your logo photo to another location and you have a red outline of your logo.

7. Adjust the size of the design to fit your bow.
8. To make a heat transfer design you need to flip your design over so that it cuts backwards – don’t worry, it will be right-side-up when you iron it to your bow. To do this, select your whole design again and select “object” then “mirror” and “horizontally”.

9. Attach your Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV) to the cutting mat, color/glitter side down, and load into your machine.
10. Follow the prompts in the Design Studio to adjust your blade (if using a ratchet blade) for Heat Transfer Vinyl (be sure to select the correct texture) and double check to make sure your design has been selected to cut.
11. Select “Send” to start cutting.
12. Select “Unload” when your machine has finished cutting your design to remove the cutting mat from the machine.

Step Two: Preparing Your Design

1. Remove your sheet of HTV from the cutting mat
2. Use your fingers or a wedding tool to remove the excess vinyl. Be sure to leave your design on the clear carrier sheet.
3. Carefully remove the centers of the letters – this is called “weeding”.

Step Three: Creating Your DIY School Spirit Cheer Bow

1. Heat up your iron or heat press. I use my clothes iron with high heat and NO steam.
2. Place your bow on your ironing board and make sure it is flat. Iron out wrinkles if necessary.
3. Pre-heat your bow so it is a little warm.
4. Place your weeded glitter logo faceup on the bow.

5. Cover your design with a Teflon sheet and apply firm pressure with your iron. Do not “iron” like you would a pair of pants. This HTV needs firm pressure.
6. Follow the time instructions for your HTV – it can vary by brand.
7. Once your design has transferred, remove the clear carrier sheet and discard.

My niece and her DIY School Spirit Cheer Bow have already made several appearances at the high school football games and she looks darling. She had the opportunity to learn a couple cheers with the cheer squad and video called me to show me the “Go Big Blue!” cheer she learned.

Now, if only my old spirit gear still fit (ha!) – I could totally have an excuse to make myself a cheer bow for Halloween!

Tell me your school mascot in the comments.