It's been a couple of weeks since my last post. We are well into summer and I've been experimenting quite a bit. The days of beach and pool have been few and far between. It's rained everyday so we've been indoors a lot.
For my latest experiment I had to use my iron. I HATE TO IRON!!!!
I don't say that lightly either. When my DH and I first moved out together I use to iron his work polos and shirts on a daily basis. He was grateful but never demanded that I do it. Not sure what came over me. I was ironed out!!! It's been 12 years since then. The dry cleaner became our iron of choice and these days I will reluctantly take out the iron and use it on a few things here or there. Most times I'll throw it in the dryer and hope it does the trick. :) If you're a mom, I'm sure you're familiar with that method. You know you've done it!!
On to my experiement. I had to use my iron for this one. I decided to experiment with Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV). I belong to quite a few Silhouette groups and that seems to be all the rage. So I ordered a Silhouette sample kit. I was very excited when I got in the mail last week. I threw the box on my table and did nothing with it. We were all sick with a virus and I was being mom full-time. In between throwing up kids I checked out tons of videos on how to do it. I finally worked on it this afternoon. I opened the box and there was a nifty weeding tool and quite a few sheets of the HTV. There was also a card that included a code to get exclusive Silhouette heat transfer designs. Woohoo!! I opened up my software and downloaded my free images. One of them was a football helmet. Just then I knew what I was going to make.
So here's a step by step on what I did.
Materials:
Silhouette Machine (pictured below) (you can use scissors but this is way cooler) :)
Weeding tool (picture below)
Heat Transfer Vinyl (picture below)
Iron
T-shirt
piece of fabric
After I gathered my materials. I opened up my Silhouette software on my computer. I first checked my images and looked for the football helmet I had downloaded minutes before. I placed it on my mat and sized it to what I thought would fit appropriateley on a t-shirt. I then added my kids jersey on top of the helmet. Here's a picture of what it looked like.
Since I'm putting this on a T-shirt my next step was to flip my image before using the Silhouette to cut it out.
I then put my HTV on my cutting mat glossy side down. (that's not actually vinyl, it's a plastic transfer sheet) I don't have a picture of this but if you ever use this you'll know what I'm talking about. I loaded the mat onto the machine and adjusted my blade to the appropriate setting. This part was tricky. According to my software my blade should be at 2. Not every machine is the same. It may look the same but the standard settings may not always be the standard for your machine. I had to cut this image out several times before it actually cut. My final blade setting was 7. Not even close to 2!! This also has to do with how much you've used your blade. Newer blades cut better than used blades. Time to get a new blade!!!
Once I cut it out I had to "weed" out the negative parts of the vinyl. That's the part that is not going to be on the t-shirt. That's where you use that nifty weeding tool. It really does help. You'll notice you will be left with your image and plastic backing.
After weeding you turn your image over and place it on the t-shirt. Then place a fabric over making sure to cover the entire image.
Next step, grab your iron (I know you can!!!) The result will be well worth it. Iron your image for about 45 seconds. You don't have to move it around just place it there and lift and place.
Remove your fabric, peel off the backing and voila!!! Put the fabric back on and iron it for a few more seconds and it will really set it.
Here's the final product. See the wrinkled shirts!!!
I made them pose for that picture. It took me longer to take that picture than to complete this project.
The possibilites are now endless. My family and I will now have a shirt for every vacation!!
Have a great night!!!
Liz
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