Guest Post: DIY Cool Kid T-Shirt Tutorial

Hey, Friends!  Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been on a blogging hiatus the past couple of weeks.  That’s primarily because I was getting ready to welcome baby #2 into our family!  Because I knew life would take on a whole new level of busy, I asked my friend, Christine, from Where the Smiles Have Been if she would be so kind to share a guest post with all of you!  She cheerfully agreed, and trust me on this one, you won’t be disappointed.  If you aren’t already following this talented blogger, you should be (without hesitation).  She has TONS of fabulous DIY projects that are simple and adorable, from all things kid related to fun and festive holiday decor and so many projects to spruce up your home.  She is one of my all-time faves and I just LOVE everything she creates!!  So without further ado, check out her fabulous tutorial below….Hi, everyone! My name is Christine and I’m the gal behind Where The Smiles Have Been. I’m so honored to be guest-posting today over here at Melly Moments!

Today I’m sharing how I made my son a DIY t-shirt using some glitter heat transfer vinyl. He’s one cool kid who’s always been a fan of rocking a pair of sunglasses ever since he was born, so I thought I’d combine those two ideas into one quick and easy project. Here I’ll show you just how easy it is to make, and I’m sharing the FREE cut file as well if you’d like to make one for the cool kid in your life!

White t-shirt

Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV): Black Glitter & Blue Glitter

Silhouette Cameo & Cutting Mat

Scissors

Iron

Spare Cloth

 
My Design

I quickly created my design in Silhouette Studio….and when I say quickly, I mean it! This whole project was completed during my son’s nap, so about an hour and a half from designing to completion. I just love wham-bam-thank-you-maam projects like that.

Once I was ready to cut out my HTV, I first needed to mirror my design (or flip it horizontally) since the HTV gets cut on the back. Then I changed my cut lines so everything except the blue sunglasses would be cut, and finalized my cut settings.

Silhouette Cameo Cut Settings for Glitter HTV: I’ve found that the default settings for Heat Transfer Material: Flocked work perfectly every time (of course, do a test cut first!):

Blade: 3
Speed: 5
Thickness: 33
Cutting Mat:  Checked

I then pulled out my handy dandy vinyl storage organizer and grabbed both sheets of HTV as well as my 12″ x 24″ cutting mat. Then I loaded the black HTV sheet onto my mat *shiny side down* and then fed it into my Silhouette Cameo.
I hit ‘Cut’ and watched the magic happen!

The black pieces were now perfectly cut (yes!), so I returned to Silhouette Studio and moved everything off the mat except for the blue sunglasses. I changed up my cut lines so only this part of the design would be cut….

….then loaded my blue glitter HTV sheet onto my mat and into my Cameo. Once ‘Cut’ was hit, it only took a few moments for all my pieces to be ready.

Now that my HTV was cut, I trimmed up all the pieces off the sheets then weeded (or removed) the excess vinyl….and this part is soooo easy to do with glitter HTV! It’s one of the many reasons why I absolutely love working with this medium!

Now all that was left was ironing the HTV pieces onto the shirt!

I first preheated my iron to the Cotton setting (no steam) and ironed my shirt, just to make sure it was nice and smooth. Oh, I like to get my craft on at my dining room table, so I also put down some cardboard to protect the table from the iron’s heat. I’m lazy and never feel like hauling out the ironing board from the laundry room.

Next, I positioned my black HTV elements on the shirt….

….then laid a spare cloth (a.k.a. an old t-shirt of my husband’s) over the HTV then started ironing away. I just applied firm and even pressure with the iron, pressing down for about ten seconds then moving over and repeating the steps.

I would occasionally remove the spare cloth and check how the HTV was adhering to the shirt by peeling away the clear backing. If there were any spots that came up with the backing, I would simply lay everything back down and start ironing again. After just a minute or two, everything was adhered nicely, so the entire backing was removed.

Next, I positioned the blue shades onto the shirt and repeated the ironing steps to apply it.

Once it was fully adhered, its backing was also peeled off. I then laid the spare cloth back down and ironed everything one more time, then removed it and flipped the shirt over so I could apply some heat to the backside of the shirt/HTV.

And here it is! Super cute, no? I know glitter HTV is typically used more with girls’ clothing, but I just love working with it, so my poor son is stuck wearing it. Plus, it’s black and blue, and that’s way boyish!

And here’s Mr. Cool Kid himself, wearing his cool new shirt…..and shades, naturally. 😉

If you have a cool kid of your own, feel free to download this cut file for FREE! It’s a .studio3 for use in Silhouette Studio.

Here are some other things I’ve created using HTV!

Thanks for taking the time to check this out, and thanks again, Mel, for letting me share this over in your neck of the digital woods! 🙂