Make the Groomsman Gift That Satisfies Every Guy on His List

Personalized bottle openers are a popular groomsman gift. And for good reason- they’re classy & functional.

But why gift just another standard bottle opener that gets stuffed in the kitchen junk drawer or placed on a keychain for use at a tailgate or BBQ? These magnetic bottle openers stick to your fridge and catch the bottle caps after they’re popped off. It’s so convenient, just grab your bottle from the fridge then pop off the cap and get back to business (or more likely, pleasure LOL).

You can easily find these magnetic bottle openers online and in some stores, although it’s harder to find blank ones in person. We bought our 6 (actually, 12 because we loved how the groomsman gifts turned out so we bought 6 more to make holiday gifts for family members) magnetic bottle openers on Amazon for $25 each. You can find them cheaper than that, but my fiancé wanted stainless steel (and lots of 5-star reviews). Even so, $25 is a pretty good price; the closest product I found online was from a website called Personalization Mall and their price was $39. So, you’ll be saving at least ~$15 per gift, which adds up if you have 6 groomsmen like we do!

I have a Cricut at home, so I was able to design & print the vinyl decals myself in Photoshop + Cricut Design Space. If you don’t have a Cricut (or Silhouette) machine, don’t fret! You can still semi-DIY and save money by purchasing your vinyl decals online; I quickly browsed Etsy and found many sellers who offer vinyl monograms for under $5 each.

I’ll be sending each guy his personalized magnetic bottle opener with the groomsman proposal cards that I made in another post (check it out here).

The tutorial for these awesome gifts is below, happy crafting!

DIY Monogrammed Magnetic Bottle Openers

Supplies:

Cricut (+ light grip cutting mat, regular blade & weeding tools)
vinyl (I used a matte black vinyl that was $6 per roll)
transfer tape (or Glad Press & Seal food wrap)
magnetic bottle opener

Instructions:

First, design your monogram in Photoshop, Cricut Design Space, or the program of your choice. I designed mine in Photoshop, so that’s what I’ll outline below. But if you don’t have Photoshop, Melanie from It Happens in a Blink has a great step-by-step for designing a split-level monogram in Cricut Design Space here.

I’m sure that there are a million ways to do this in Photoshop, but this is how I did it- I’m definitely no Photoshop expert, so if you know a better/easier way to do something, by all means do it! (And maybe share in the comments below so we can all learn? 🙂 )

Making your split-level monogram in Photoshop:

Start a new Photoshop document. Start by creating your big letter (“B” in my case). Increase the font so it’s big enough to work with.
Create a rectangle and position it where you want the “split” to be. The fill of the rectangle should be white and the border black. Adjust the border thickness to your preferences.
Make a second rectangle that is ALL white (either no border, or a white border) and place it on top of your first rectangle. Transform the shape so that the top & bottom borders of the first rectangle are visible, but not the side borders. In other words, make the second rectangle longer and very slightly shorter than the first.
Add a text box and type in the full name (in my case, “Berkowitz”). I chose to use all-caps. Place your text box inside the “split” and adjust the font & size until it looks good to you. Adjusting the spacing between the letters helps the names to fit better (s t r e t c h the shorter names and [squish] the longer ones to fill the rectangle).
You can leave your design as-is at this point, but I decided to surround mine with a square because I thought it looked more polished. Create a square large enough to fit around your big letter and position it so everything is centered. Make sure there is no fill or else it will just cover your design (alternatively, send it to the back). Adjust the thickness of the border to fit your preferences, keeping in mind that a thinner border is more difficult to weed & transfer once your vinyl is cut.
Fine-tune your design, making sure the sizing & spelling are correct and ensuring that everything is lined-up how you want it. Then, flatten your image.
Make sure to save the image in a file-type that Cricut Design Space can open (JPEG, GIF, PNG, or BMP.)

Turning your image into a cut-file for Cricut Design Space:

Create a new project in Cricut Design Space. Click on the Upload icon on the left-hand side of the screen to upload your image.
Open your image. Since it only has two colors (B&W), select Simple.
Erase all of the white-space in your image. Just click on white areas to erase them. Don’t forget the insides of round letters, like the “B”, “R”, and “O” on my image. You can check to make sure you didn’t miss any white-space by clicking Preview.
On the next screen, select Save as a cut image since we are just cutting this project from vinyl, not printing it.
After hitting Save, you will be directed back to the Upload screen. Here, your newly uploaded image should show up at the bottom. Select it then click Insert Images.
The program will open your monogram in your canvas. My monogram wasn’t perfectly square when I created it in Photoshop but I want it to be and I don’t mind the slight transformation of my font. Therefore, I’m going to “unlock” it and set dimensions of 4″ x 4″ to fit on my bottle opener.
When you’re ready, click Make It to create your vinyl decal.
Ensure that the dial on your machine is set to vinyl. Place your vinyl (backing side down) on your mat and load it into the machine. I used the light grip mat because I have trouble weeding with the standard grip mat; use whichever you prefer.
Press the blinking “C” button on your machine and let the Cricut work it’s magic!
Once the cutting stops, unload your mat. This is the tricky step- weeding! Depending on your preference and the intricacy of your design, you might be more comfortable “reverse weeding” like I did. Becky & Glenna from My Paper Craze have a great guide on this here. I removed my entire piece of vinyl from the mat, then placed transfer tape over the whole design and burnished it with a gift card. Then I peeled the vinyl backing off and weeded all of the white-space areas. This step requires a lot of patience, especially if your design is relatively small. If one of your letters comes off with the background, don’t fret! Try to position it back right away and if you’re having trouble, set is aside to try again later once the rest of your design is weeded.
Grab your bottle opener and make sure it’s clean. You don’t want any little hairs or dirt to get stuck under your vinyl. Hold your weeded decal over the opener in the spot where you want it and when your ready, place it down. Use a gift card to burnish the design and get rid of any air bubbles if you have them.
After your decal is sufficiently burnished, peel back the transfer tape so that only your vinyl remains on the opener. If there are any more bubbles, try to iron them out with your gift card (or the back of your fingernail).
All done! I used a little stainless steel cleaner on my bottle openers before packaging my gifts because I put fingerprints all over them during the last step.