I’m becoming addicted to vinyl

[TallTayl]

Seriously I am in love with heat transfer vinyl. This story started a few weeks ago when my middle schooler announced we needed to make t-shirts for her gym class volleyball team for extra credit. 7 kids, no problem. 

 

She knew what she wanted, for the most part, so we designed a logo and having only a teensy amount of  experience with iron on printable transfers and fabric paint we set out to hand make these. It was a crap ton of work hand cutting the names and numbers with the exacto, painting three coats of white, and pressing with a hand iron to cure the inks. Two sided meant twice the work. But hey, I love that kid and who needs free time anyway? Those took us about 8 hours after all was said and done. 

 

 

Well, by now the itch had to be scratched. I wanted to make these faster, and “funnier”.  Heat transfer vinyl to the rescue. I load up the silhouette cutter and off we go. Here’s one I made for hubs for giggles. I’m super low carb, and he, well...

 

What i I really wanted was a custom t of our cattle dog, Dipper. He’s got this happy attitude about him that is infectious. Remember that portrait from Christmas? I took that original photo and turned it into a digital sketch.

 

then i I loaded the sketch into the silhouette cameo design software and cut it into heat transfer vinyl. Each teensy little negative space was a total eye test to weed out. 

here it is on the vinyl piece ready to heat onto the t. 

 

And here’s the final piece.

i hope hubs likes it. This one is way too big for me to wear. Though I would find a way if he hates it. 

 

 

 

 

[Faerywren]

We have a cattle dog named Bindi. She is a hot mess. We have a sticker on our Suburu that says, "Owned by a Blue Heeler". It's the total truth.

[GoldieMN]

Wow, great job!  I have a Black Cat cutter.  Definitely will be looking into the iron-on vinyl.  

GoldieMN

[TallTayl]

9 hours ago, Faerywren said:

We have a cattle dog named Bindi. She is a hot mess. We have a sticker on our Suburu that says, "Owned by a Blue Heeler". It's the total truth.

Dipper’s gotcha day was in mid January last year. I could see within minutes why he ended up in doggie prison. We have to make sure he has jobs to keep his mind busy. The heeler mouthiness was a difficult thing to teach him to control. Thank goodness he was very willing to learn and please us. He’s become one of my favorite dogs ever. 

[TallTayl]

22 minutes ago, GoldieMN said:

Wow, great job!  I have a Black Cat cutter.  Definitely will be looking into the iron-on vinyl.  

GoldieMN

It is so much fun! I figured out how to make the heat transfers into stencils for screen printing.

 

 

The stuff is so versatile! 

[GoldieMN]

@TallTayl How is the heat-transfer vinyl different from regular cutting vinyl (for stencil use)?

GoldieMN

[Sponiebr]

OH!!!! OH!!!!! I NEED a TEE SHIRT! 

I have come up with my new motto:
#genXaf
I've GOTTA get the Tee shirt!!!!

[TallTayl]

10 minutes ago, GoldieMN said:

@TallTayl How is the heat-transfer vinyl different from regular cutting vinyl (for stencil use)?

GoldieMN

The heat transfer irons on to become part of the fabric. Regular vinyl just sticks on top of solid stuff like glass, metal, etc. 

 

 

[TallTayl]

Here’s one vid of thousands for HTV. 

 

 

Regular vinyl will stick to fabric *temporarily* and is not meant for wearing. It will peel off very easily and is not washable. 

[GoldieMN]

@TallTayl Ok, I thought you meant you cut a stencil from the vinyl and screenprint with paint.  Got it!

GoldieMN

[kandlekrazy]

So cute and how much fun!  I bet your daughter was very happy with the results.   I have a vinyl cutter that I never use, lol.  Bought it thinking I'd do some classy cut outs for candle jars, well that never happened.  Maybe you just inspired me to find it, dust it off and play!

[TallTayl]

34 minutes ago, GoldieMN said:

@TallTayl Ok, I thought you meant you cut a stencil from the vinyl and screenprint with paint.  Got it!

GoldieMN

I have done that on other projects. 🤗

the heat transfer works best with screen printing for me. It does not let as much ink bleed.

 

the vinyl types are so versatile I’m just scratching the surface. 

[Jcandleattic]

I used to work (many many moons ago) at a t-shirt transfer shop, and we would create our own vinyl transfers for custom projects. It was fun, but I honestly don't remember much about it. I didn't like the owner, and was only there for a few months (it was a summer high-school job) 

Edited February 15, 2018 by Jcandleattic

[Sarah S]

This is so timely @TallTayl, thank you so much for posting this!

Your shirts look fantastic, I love the pizza cutter one, that is so my husband too! 😆

How well do you feel the transfers hold up to washing?

We have a major event coming up for one of our group exercise programs, and the other instructors and I really want to have matching tanks that fit in the essence of the program and our personalities. We've been searching around, and I think this might be the answer! The girls will be thrilled if I can make tanks that have a motivational front and our names on the back, that would be so awesome!

I was worried because my Cricut is absolutely ancient, and all the tutorials have new machines with a specific setting for transfers, and the digital designs. But I searched around on the Cricut site and I think I can make my prehistoric machine work. Might take a lot of practice shirts, lol.

My only concern is the transfer holding up through the super sweaty workout and at least a couple washes (since we'll need them for a couple classes). Do you have to be really careful about how you wash these?

Thanks TT!!!

[TallTayl]

 

 So far so good. Turning them inside out for washing and drying seems to be the most common recommendation. 

 

You can use an iron but it seems like a heat press is the way to go to ensure the heat and pressure set the vinyl into the fabric.  I bought one for $134 delivered. It works fantastically!

 

Loads and loads of new T-shirt shops popped up using these transfers and they’re all doing gangbusters so I think the product will hold up well for you. I use the SISER brand. Their “easy weed” type seems to be the most popular.

 

Just looking around places like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Kohls, etc. most of the bigT-shirt companies like under armor , Nike and Adidas are all using vinyl heat transfers instead of screen printing these days

[TallTayl]

Oh if you’re making custom multicolor decals I’ve learned of places that make the decals fairly inexpensively, and you just apply them. I’ll have to look it up though.

[Sarah S]

2 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Oh if you’re making custom multicolor decals I’ve learned of places that make the decals fairly inexpensively, and you just apply them. I’ll have to look it up though.

 

I'm going simple with just lettering for now, but I will keep that in mind, thank you!