Homemade Christmas - Heat Transfer Vinyl

DIY: Heat Transfer Vinyl

This is pretty straightforward - there are only a few tricky things to keep straight.  First, the design is all that really matters (and remembering to reverse the image before cutting!). I spent most of the time tracing, moving lines, and selecting fonts and sizes.  Another tricky piece is to remember how to load the HTV into the SIL - I get this wrong from time to time.  HTV (even the SIL brand) is fun to work with - it has a removable layer that also acts as a heat-barrier during ironing, it cuts beautifully and weeds really well.

The tigerhawk I always slap down to use up extra space of the HTV. 

This next design took forever!  I don't know much about cars (especially old ones) so looked at several pictures of old Hudson Hornets and picked out design elements that make the car identifiable.  I then found an old time car silhouette and modified it heavily.  The recipients were happy with how it turned out.  They said it was recognizable - so mission accomplished! 

 Heavily stylized Jake the dog in a 'pocket'.  Yellow HTV and black HTV.

Great use of a pocket T from Children's Place.  I thought the dino stored in the pocket was pretty cute. 

The last trick is to apply lots and lots and lots of pressure when ironing the HTV.  Think of it this way, the professionals use similar HTV and rely on a precisely heated press to fuse together the shirt and material. These heat presses have at least two adjustments: heat and pressure (lbs of force placed on the material and shirt).  So, for the home DIY, you have to put a LOT of downward pressure on your iron in order to make it work correctly.  This means getting up high and having a solid surface on which to put the downward force.  I literally take the pad off my ironing board and place it directly on the counter top (linoleum), kneel on my chair, and put as much weight on the iron as I can tolerate.  You don't need to shimmy around the iron much, especially if your design is smaller than the iron surface. Cotton Heat + Maximum Pressure!  That is the mantra.