By
Iggy's Holiday T-Shirt's
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
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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!