Earlier this week I was looking for some t-shirts to take away
with me on holiday, I wanted something different with original
designs, not the usual boring stuff. After looking around for a
while I found a shop displaying a great selection of t-shirts,
sporting some truly unique designs - they looked ideal, that was
until I noticed the price tags.
"These are all limited edition designs," said the assistant "so
they cost a bit more," a bit more? I thought - it would be
cheaper to wear a painting from the Tate!
That night I remembered a article in a computer magazine about
printing your own t-shirt at home. It said all I needed was a
t-shirt, an Inkjet printer, an iron, a sheet of ordinary white
copier paper and a pack of inkjet transfer paper. So all I
needed to pick up was a t-shirt and the transfer paper.
According to this article all I had to do was print out my
design or photo onto the transfer paper and then iron it onto
the t-shirt, peel off the backing paper and voila you have your
own very unique t-shirt, sounds easy enough I thought.
I ended up with a pack of three plain t-shirts for £12 and a
pack of ten t-shirt transfers for £8. I discovered there were
two types of t-shirt transfers, one for dark t-shirts and one
for light or white t-shirts, I chose the dark t-shirt transfers
as my new t-shirts were black.
As soon as I got back home, I got on the case straight away and
set about knocking up a few designs. To get some inspiration I
flicked through my collection of fonts and photos, drew up some
outlines and before I knew it I had several designs I liked
ready for print.
Wasting no time, I printed out my design on to the transfer
paper, cut it out and furiously began ironing my transfer on to
my new t-shirt, ensuring I had covered the entire area of the
transfer paper with the iron. A couple of minutes later I was
peeling the transfer from my t-shirt with baited breath. And
there it was, my design emblazoned across the chest of my new
t-shirt, it looked great, except for the fact that it was back
to front! I had forgotten to create a "mirror image" of the
design before printing it to the transfer paper, as it clearly
states in the instructions. Curses...one t-shirt wasted, just as
well I got the 3 pack.
I managed to get the other t-shirts printed up to my
satisfaction, looking good this time, they were the right way
round!
Whilst reading the instructions again I discovered that it is
possible to get a different finish on the t-shirt design by
ironing over it with different types of paper. You can get a
matte finish on your t-shirt by ironing over it with a sheet of
ordinary white copier paper for 10 seconds, this, I thought gave
the transferred design a less shiney, more professional look.
The transfers also work on many different items of clothing such
as shorts, baseball caps and even on some mouse matt's. I was
really surprised to find that the printed t-shirts were fully
machine washable.
Although I wasted one t-shirt, a sheet of transfer paper and
managed to burn myself with the iron in my excitement, it was
well worth it. I am doing the shirts for our under tens football
team just for fun. It is very easy to do, but I would say to
read the instructions carefully before you start and try on a
sample first before using real clothes!
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