Tutorial: Heat Transfer Paper

As we all know, it’s very fun and interesting if you have known the methods of how to use heat transfer paper to make your own design. So, today I want to introduce how to use haet transfer paper to make a t-shirt with your own design.

So here's what you'll need to get started:

1.  T-shirt - preferably cotton or a cotton/poly blend

2.  Heat transfer vinyl.  I like the Siser Easy Weed heat transfer vinyl they carry, they offer coupons fairly often, shipping is free over $75, and if you order early they ship it out the same day.  

3.  Iron 

4.  Cricut or other electric die-cutting machine and the image(s) you want to cut.

Choose a picture that you want to print, cut it out in paper first to make sure the sizing is right. Another thing is heat transfer vinyl has two sides: one shiny and one matte. Make sure you place the vinyl on the mat SHINY SIDE DOWN. When you have the vinyl in front of you, it's very easy to see which side is the shiny and which is the matte.

Once your image is cut, you will need to do some weeding. In this case, I'm removing the eyes, nose and bow on the skull.  I'll also remove the inside of some of the letters in Keagan's name (the e, a's, and g).You will also need to remove all of the excess vinyl around the edge of the image. All that you want left is what is going to be placed on your shirt.

Now you're ready for the heat! Here's the shirt all lined up on the press. This step isn't really necessary for one layer designs like this, but I like the thought of protecting the shirt and design a bit:

I had already set the temperature (based on what the vinyl manufactuer recommended) on the press earlier, so it was hot and ready to go. When the time is up, remove the paper protector and carefully peel away the clear carrier sheet. It is hot so be careful! If you find that some of the vinyl is sticking to the carrier and lifting away from the shirt, carefully place it back down and re-press for a few more seconds.

Now, transfer a t-shirt with your own design is finished. Hope you will be like it and to make it by yourself.