August 13, 2012

Fun and Easy T-Shirt Iron-Ons

Hi Folks

Hands up who has ever tried doing their own T-Shirt Iron-ons?  Yep... I have tried several times, with several different products, with limited success.  Most of the time I find the iron-on itself is very thick, a bit stiff with a very plastic feel :(  

I saw Silhouette had bought out a Printable Iron-on Heat Transfer paper and as I have been feeling like a very slack Grandma having not made anything for my little granddaughters,  I thought hey this could be a fun, quick and easy project.  Made even quicker as my Cameo can cut out the images too.


So off to the shops I went and picked up these cute little tops for the girls for Summer (it's Winter here at the moment).  Nothing flash, nothing fancy, just plain, inexpensive play tops.


Then the fun began... I figured I could use graphic images to make up some cute iron-ons from the numerous digital kits I have just sitting on my hard drive. 

Now all my layout designing was done in the Silhouette Studio but you could just as easily do this in photoshop.  Things to note if you are using the Cameo: 1. don't forget to mirror the image so it's backwards.  As I actually wanted a border around all my images, I found it easier to do the border and then group everything together before mirroring the image.  2. Make sure you have the correct page settings in Silhouette Studio, I didn't and printed my images then realized I had the Cutting Mat set to 12x12 instead of none :(  This made a difference to the position of registration marks and the images on the cutting mat. 3. Read the instructions on the back of the pack several times...nuf said!

I printed out the design on my Epson, the only sticking point here was what paper type setting to use.  I went with plain paper but next time I may try a setting that will put more ink on the page, I like a nice, dark, crisp image.  I cut the images with the Cameo and then following the instructions I removed the part of the transfer not needed.  Don't have a Cameo, don't worry just cut the images freehand. I must say I was very surprised by how thin the transfer paper was, hurrah no more thick plastic transfers! 

Next I ironed the images on...


I used the Printable Iron-on for light fabric, and yeah it really is for light fabric!  As white is not a colour anything white on your image will take on the colour of the shirt.   I didn't end up doing the pink shirt as I had a cute little white duck image for the iron-on... pink ducks really don't do it for me, lol!


I did find I had to iron the printables several times in some spots to get a good transfer, but that may just have been my lame ironing skills...hahaha.

The shirts cost me $4.00ea (AU) and the printed transfer worked out to 75c ea, howz that for a cheap personalized gift :)  I love how the shirts turned out and will definately do more of these.  Next time I will try the Heat Transfer Paper for Dark Fabrics and see how we go with that.

Have a great day!

2 comments:

  1. Love them! Great idea - do you take orders ;-)

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  2. Ummm not yet Julie, then I would never make anything for my granddaughters...hahahaha!

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