Crafting: Iron-on T-shirt Transfers

Last night my good friend, Em, came over to visit. I hadn't seen her in forever, so we decided to do something special - iron on t-shirt transfers to make cool graphic tees!

Our supplies

• Blank fitted t-shirt. We bought ours from Goodwill for under $5. Mine was gray and hers was red.
• Iron-on printer transfers. A set of 6 cost $7 at Meijer
• Scissors
• Free vector graphic from online. Make sure it is a free download that you can use any way at your discretion. 
• Iron
• Ironing Board
• Pillowcase

Step One - find a graphic you like and print

Emily and I searched online for free graphics. We both found ones that fit. Here's was an elephant and mine was a narwhal. :) We inserted the special paper into the printer and printed the designs to the width and height that best suited our t-shirts.

Step Two - Cut Out the Transfer

Through trial and error on Emilie's shirt -we found out that cutting as close to the outline of the graphic as possible was the best option. Otherwise the adhesive that sticks the design to the shirt will show up as a clear glaze in the places there is no design, making the shirt look less nice.

Step Three: Warm out the Iron

Make sure the iron is set to Cotton and NO steam. Let it warm up for about five minutes.

Step Four - Prep the pillowcase and t-shirt

Next, you will want to iron all the wrinkles out of the pillowcase. The pillowcase provides support and a barrier between the ironing board and the t-shirt. Once all the wrinkles are out of the pillowcase, set your t-shirt overtop of it to iron out its wrinkles too. 

Step Five - Carefully iron on your transfer

Place your transfer in the desired location on the shirt. Then iron from left to right for 20 seconds. Next, iron from top to bottom for 20 seconds. Repeat until enough time has passed according to how long you should iron your transfer.

1/4 or less of an 8.5 by 11 page = 45 seconds

1/2 of an 8.5 by 11 page = 90 seconds

Full page = 3 minutes

Step Five - Let the shirt Cool for 2 minutes

Once the ironing is done, move your shirt off the ironing board and onto a cool surface. We just moved ours to the floor. Wait for 2 minutes to let the transfer cool down.

Step Six - Peel off the paper

You'll want to peel off the backing to the transfer. be very careful not to peel the transfer off. What I did was try a couple different places to start peeling, once I saw the black ink was attaching to the shirt and not the back of the white paper, I started to peel faster.

Step 7 -Try on your new shirt
Put your new graphic tee on and enjoy!

Tips for washing

Wash your shirt inside out in cold water. Then, tumble dry on low.