Does Anyone Use...

Aprons anymore? I use to use one all the time but it came up missing *okie wonders how things come up missing like not only her apron but forks, towels, bowls, etc*. I found some aprons pretty cheap at my favorite bargain store, Wall's, and decided I would see if I could bling one up for myself. Oh the apron is 100% cotton and is like a canvas material, very nice!

I did searches for aprons to see if  could find any good decorating ideas and I really liked the "That's how I roll" one I saw and thought I would go with that idea.

I used one of the swashes from the Samantha font and then added the saying inside of the scrollish frame. I can't remember the font I used off hand but I do know I did a shadow of it to make the letters a little thicker. I also lined up the words to the bottom of the scroll so I could get them curved a bit and then just moved all the words up toward the middle of the scroll. I got the rolling pin from a clipart image and just did an import and trace in MTC.



I had originally wanted to do the saying in white HTV but I am running extremely low on white so I went with the Spectrum Holograhic instead.

One more reason I love MTC is that it has a rhinestone feature where you can do an "outline" or a "fill shape" to make a rhinestone template. I did do a little tweaking since the fill shape would have had the rhinestones on some of the black vinyl but it was no big deal to just delete the circles I didn't need to cut.

I was concerned how the HTV and rhinestones would take to the canvas material so I did wash the apron first before applying the HTV and rhinestones. Here are the settings I used

HTV Black - 310 degrees 10 seconds (because it was going to get more heat when I applied the next layer).
HTV Spectrum - 310 degrees 10 seconds, checked it and then another 10 seconds
Rhinestones - 350 degrees 20 seconds

I was really nervous about trying to do the rhinestones on the hotter temp and longer time with the htv already down so what I did was I got my transfer rhinestone sheet in place and then I used the transfer film from the black HTV to lay over the whole image. I placed the image where the rhinestones were on the edge of the heat press and most of the HTV was out of the heat press. This seemed to work pretty good.

Now I guess this will either decorate my kitchen or I will have to start doing some cooking to justify this purchase and project! *okie thinks the decorating part is likely more plausible*

More T-Shirts

During my trip to Walmart I found some t-shirts on clearance for $3 and I picked up a few in each size. I knew I would have to make some for my daughter, Goddaughters and their mother. What I don't use I will take back.

Once I knew the Spectrum Holographic would work okay I did my daughter and two of my Goddaughters t-shirts with that HTV. They loved them! I did this design a few weeks ago in anticipation of it being this year's pattern for our t-shirts. I really like it being the silhouette with this type of HTV. Sorry for the bad picture but it is really hard to get a decent picture of this stuff.

Here is a close up shot of the design and I think you might be able to see it a little better. You can see how shiny it is. This is one of the ones that the weeding wasn't perfect and as you can see the outside foil area didn't stick to the t-shirt.

I wanted to make my shirt and my friend Andrea's shirts a bit different from the girls so I used some Gold Holographic Foil HTV for our t-shirts. I really like how this one came out!

Tomorrow I will show you how I do fill in the areas with different colors.

Guess What I Got!

Well, well, well...is anyone still around?? I have been so busy with school starting that I haven't had time to blog and then during the holiday weekend I had a new toy to figure out! I have always said I have some very generous readers and I still stand by that since my new toy that was shipped to my house was a Heat Press! It was a "thank you, Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas" present.

Here is the heat press all unpacked and set up not long after it arrived on Friday evening. I sat and looked at it and thought "this is going to be difficult". And ya know what, IT WASN'T! I did find out I can't have it turned on and my AC unit in the living room on at the same time, breaker trips...yep...I need MORE POWER! A friend of mine on Facebook let me know hers does the same things so then I wasn't as worried. I just cut off the AC in the living room when I want to use it. Luckily the AC in the craftroom is on a circuit by it's self so I don't have to get too hot while using it.  

It came with a little manual and it seemed super simple and it was. The biggest thing is making sure you read the instructions for on the Heat Transfer Vinyl, that will from  now on only be referred to as HTV so I don't have to type as much, and see what settings you need to be using.

In my excitement of knowing I was going to get  a heat press I went to Signwarehouse.com and ordered some of the HTV they had on clearance. I also worked on some designs during the week so I could be ready to go when I got the heat press. I spent Friday trying to cut and weed some holographic HTV and I was so frustrated because I got nothing done! I was cutting away but the wedding was the problem. I kept having some of the "foil" left behind. I posted a picture on Facebook and a friend of mine send me messages and told me that I could still use it because the foil part didn't have the "carrier" and wouldn't stick. She was correct! When I applied it on the shirt the foil part didn't stick! I had already thrown away several cuts but at least I got it on clearance so I didn't feel too bad.

The rainbow holographic HTV weeded very nicely and I tried it first on an older tank top I had in my closet. During my trip to Walmart to pick up a few things I wore my tank top and a girl there asked me about it and I told her I made it. I have to deliver a t-shirt to her on Wednesday!



I have some others to show but I don't want to bore you all in one post so I will get a few other posts this week. I am still swamped with work right now so I won't be blogging regularly until things calm down.