Where Did You Get That Cute Shirt?

Oh, this? I made it......

Good Morning BLUE fans. Is everyone having fun preparing for the "day of our people" on Saturday? I know Cat and I are. We are gearing up to be hosting a little make 'n take at the LBH. Please come out to the shop on Saturday to see what we are making and give us an opportunity to meet you! We love our fans and hope to see as many of you on Saturday as we can. Oh, and did I mention there will be prizes? Lots of prizes. So, bring yourself, bring your friends, bring a smile and let's have FUN!

So, let's get to it. Today I am giving you a tutorial on how to make a t-shirt with the Silhouette Heat Transfer material.  It seems this medium is quite the rage right now. I've seen so many things on Pinterest, various blogs, You Tube, you name it, using this stuff. So, I thought..............let's see what the hype is about. With National Scrapbook Day coming up on Saturday, I knew I wanted to make some t-shirts for Cat and I to wear.

I followed the tutorial on the Silhouette blog here. I used a basic t-shirt I purchased at Wal-Mart, the Silhouette brand of heat transfer material (I used smooth white) that can be purchased here and the Silhouette hook.

To get started, I created my design within the Silhouette software. Once finished, it's important that you remember to "flip horizontally" (select your image, right click, "flip horizontally). This is so the design reads correctly once it's ironed on.

Next, I selected the correct medium within the cutting settings, set my blade to 2, adjusted my rollers on the machine and selected "load media" on my machine (you might be used to selecting "load cutting mat"). Load the material with the shiny side DOWN. You DO NOT have to put the transfer material on a cutting mat. I hit cut in the software and let the machine do its magic. When it's done cutting, unload, cut off the excess that isn't part of the design and peel back the material to reveal your design. Here's where the hook tool comes in handy; it helps weed those tiny cuts from your design. In this instance, the middle of the "D" or the windows and door of the house, etc.

Now for some pointers:

• Instead of feeding the entire roll of material through the machine, I cut a square down to size of my design and tried to cut with that. It was in an effort to save the material. I would recommend NOT doing this. The material fed crooked through the machine and it was just a mess. It's best to leave everything in tact and feed the roll through the machine. When it's finished cutting, then cut off the excess you don't use.
• Once the Silhouette finished cutting, it is very hard to tell that anything was cut. I actually cut the design twice thinking I had a bad blade. Nope, it cut on the first time, it's just hard to tell.

hard to tell anything is cut, huh?

Once you have your design ready, it's time to iron to your shirt. Place the design (sticky side down) on the t-shirt where you want it and press down to allow it to stick to the shirt. Get a hot iron (I turned mine to the highest setting and emptied the water). Lay a piece of material over the design and with a hot iron, apply pressure and iron. This step took a little time for me. At first, I used a dishtowel to iron over and that proved to be too thick. I finally used a pillowcase and that worked much better. Just make sure your material isn't too thin because that plastic WILL melt quickly. Learn from my mistakes, fans! I placed the iron inside the pillowcase and ironed on to the shirt. Iron through both layers of the pillowcase to avoid melting. 

1997 called, they want their iron back

After you have ironed on the design, peel the plastic up. There may be pieces that don't get ironed down all the way. Don't fret; take this step SLOW when peeling back the plastic. Manipulate the design if you have to and use the hook to help release some of the design from the plastic. Once the plastic is off, place the pillowcase back over the design and give it another iron-over to ensure everything is transferred to the shirt.

And voila; just like that, you have a scrappy shirt to help celebrate NSD.

There are so many possibilities with this transfer material. I can't wait to create more things with it; tote bags, pillows, my son some shirts, the list goes on.

Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. And because we love our fans, we are going to share the design I created for the t-shirt with you.................for FREE. Please email us at lbhbluecrew@gmail.com if you are interested in the design. We will get this emailed back to you!

Now for the winners from yesterday. We had such a huge response, I feel like giving away FIVE prizes. yep, 5!
Christina Creations, Angie Grimm, Suella, terri d and ladynurse4. Please email us at lbhbluecrew@gmail.com.

Want a chance at prize? Comment below and tell me what you would make with some Heat Transfer Material.

Please join me again tomorrow for a fun TBT.

Stay True Blue,

Nat