Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Technique Tuesday - Heat Transfer Vinyl

It's time for a tutorial! This month's tutorial is going to be about how to apply heat transfer vinyl. I personally get mine from Nick at Craft Vinyl - but I have had several people tell me it is also available at their Joann's or ACMoore. And I know some people love their Yudus - but I do not have the patience to wait for all the steps in that process. With heat transfer vinyl I can have my projects done in less than half an hour (on a good day). Let's start with the supplies:

I have my cotton tote bags, vinyl, iron, and parchment paper ready to go. The iron should be dry (pour the water out if it is a steam iron) and very hot!

This is my image from Helly Kitty Greetings (5 inches using the Silhouette feature). You have to flip the image either on your Gypsy or Expression. 

So here is is flipped. For images it really isn't super important but you should know if you don't flip it the image when it is ironed will be facing the opposite way. 

For words you must flip the image  - so here is the phrase I used flipped - "Happy Halloween" from Wild Card cut at 2 inches real dial size. 

Now it is time to cut! Make sure you place the vinyl on your mat shiny side down - you want to cut the dull side. Basic vinyl settings apply: Blade depth 3 - Medium Pressure - Medium Speed


Once the images are cut you need to weed all the excess - which basically means peel off all the stuff around the cut. Your cut image will stay on the plastic and it should. I will say also give you this tip - I was using glitter vinyl here - and that is a bit thicker so I use a longer blade depth and it is much more difficult to weed and see where the cut are (so some swearing might be necessary to facilitate the process). 


You want to place your image shiny plastic up on your tote or shirt. 

Then place parchment paper over your item and the vinyl and then iron over the top. Don't stay in one spot too long - sweep back and forth for a few minutes. Then set it aside to cool. This is the hardest part since as I mentioned - not a fan of waiting - but you have to *sigh*. Once it is all cooled down I peel off the plastic layer, put the parchment back on and then do one more quick swipe to make sure it is really on there. 



  All done! It was so easy that I also added some heat set gems/studs to finish it off. 

I also made another one  - this is for a little boy so I chose the bat image from Pumpkin Carvings cut at 6 inches. I also added the heat set stars to this one. 


Oh and I didn't forget the phrases - I put those on the back of the bags. 

And that is all there is to it! I hope this inspires you to work with a new product and make some great projects! And to sweeten that inspiration - we have some blog candy! This month's blog candy is a $15 gift card to Michael's or Joann's (winner's choice) courtesy of Caroline! Isn't that awesome? All you have to do is leave a comment here to be entered - and it you link a heat transfer vinyl project here you will get a second entry in the drawing! You have until Monday, October10th to be entered. Happy crafting!
---Allison




15 comments:

  1. OMG! I was just trying to remember what type of paper you told me to use instead of the mesh last night!! The only thing my little brain could come up with was wax paper. And I knew that wasn't right!

    Thanks Allison!

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  2. Oh wow!!! What a great project! I saw a shirt that I really wanted but there were two issues, it was white and they didnt have my size. I could so recreate it with this technique. Hopefully I will have time to complete this weekend

    Thanks for sharing!

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  3. This project is super cute. And what a great step by step tutorial. Thank you so much, I have been wanting to give vinyl a try!!
    Kathy
    http://3spoileddogs.blogspot.com/

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  4. This came out super cute and great tutorial. Thanks for the link to buy HTV. Off to check it out.

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  5. This is awesome! I have got some heat vinyl and I am going to try them out!

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  6. Great tutorial Allison! Love the bags, super cute! Need to look into the heat set vinyl, definitely easier than freezer tees and haven't even tried the YUDU yet.

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  7. ENABLER! I haven't tried the heat transfer vinyl yet, but now I have to...

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  8. Susan - Allison is a BIG enabler :o)

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  9. Thanks for the tutorial! Your bags turned out great. I have some htv but haven't used it yet:/

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  10. Thanks so much for this tutorial! I just bought some more sparkle vinyl at ac Moore last week so will be popping something out tomorrow!

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  11. That is really cool! I would probably ruin a lot of things before I got it right but it might be worth trying to shirts to go with our halloween costumes.

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  12. Just learning to use vinyl. This is very helpful!! Thanks so much!!
    Patty

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  13. Still trying to convince myself to buy so vinyl. But your projects are great.

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  14. This is fantastic. I do love vinyl so I should try this!

    Michele
    michelegreen120 at gmail dot com
    www.michelegreen.com

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