I recently bought some iron-on vinyl from... guess where... Pick Your Plum! I may be a little addicted to that site. A little.
Anyway, I hadn't used it before, but I was curious. So when it arrived, I headed over to Sam's house to run it through her Cricut.
Oh. Man. It's fun!! However, there weren't an abundance of tutorials on how to actually do it (not that it's particularly hard).
Here is a little "cheat sheet" for you to glance at if you want to embellish your own fabric.
1. Put the
backing side of your vinyl down to the mat. This means everything will be ironed on in reverse. If this matters to you, make sure to
flip your image (especially important with letters!).
2. Set your machine with
speed low, pressure high, and blade 2. The tutorials I found said that you wanted to "kiss" the vinyl-- meaning you'll cut through the vinyl but not the backing. We actually found that it was okay if you cut through both, and that might be a good idea for more detailed images. You still just iron and peel the backing off the same way.
3. Your iron apparently should be set to 302 degrees? Uh, yeah... I just used the
cotton setting. Iput a towel in between the iron and shirt, but it's not necessary. Press medium-hard for about 20 seconds. Gently peel the backing to make sure your image is adhered.
4. With the stuff I had, you could do a
hot or cold peel. Personally, I can't wait that long, so I did a hot peel. :)
I've washed the monkey shirt, and it washes great. Iron-on vinyl = AWESOME!
It makes for a pretty cute little onesie! Brooks already has a little monkey one...
"I want that camera! I will have it!"
And here's Brooks's airplane.
I put this one on a onesie that I dyed dark green. I love how "boy" the colors are!
It even looks good with a drool mark!
It's kind of like screenprinting, but way easier (I assume?). Plus, if you don't have access to a Cricut or Silhouette, the stuff can be easily cut by hand, too. Bonus! :)