Valentine T-Shirt Tutorial

Ahhh...another holiday to create stuff for! Whoo hoo! :) I have so many plans...  Anyway, today's project, the first of my valentine projects, is this rhinestone and heat transfer t-shirt. I thought I would walk you through it. First I cut out my heat transfer material with my Silhouette Cameo. Today I used Silhouette brand smooth red heat transfer vinyl. I used the settings that my Cameo calls for for flocked vinyl. My Cameo seems to need the blade bumped up on almost everything I cut. Yours might be different so always do a test cut first.

I used 2 shapes in this project. The heat transfer is "heart_tree_C01483_23067". I loaded my media into my Cameo and cut it.

After it comes out of the machine, carefully peel away the material you are not using.

You are left with your heat transfer. Something you need to note, since the tree looks the same whether it is flipped as a mirror image or not, I DID NOT mirror image it in the software. If you had words or something similar, you will want to flip your image horizontally. You do this because you have to flip the image over when you iron it on. Very important!

I put the tree aside and next cut the rhinestone template. For this I used the shape "rhinestone_xoxo_C20091201142706_18816". I do not use the Silhouette rhinestone template material. This is not because I don't like it...I actually prefer it. It is thinner and peels right off the backing with the holes cut perfectly. Problem is, it's expensive compared to thicker rhinestone material that you can get online. This adds a step for me. I set my Cameo settings pretty high -- blade is set to 8. But the holes don't pull off the backing and I have to poke them out almost one by one. If you have the Silhouette rhinestone material you definitely want to use it! I'm cheap!

So load your media and cut your template material.

 When it comes out it looks kind of like this. I then have to punch most of those holes out. Not so with the Silhouette template material...

Then you place it on the backing board.

Next, sprinkle your rhinestones on the holes and move them into place with the brush. You will have to pick up the remaining rhinestones and place them into the holes.

When you are finished with the rhinestone placement it will look something like this.

Next you will place your rhinestone transfer paper over the rhinestones and carefully pull up the paper.

I wanted to make sure I had everything arranged the way I wanted it before I ironed it all down.

I placed the ironing paper over the design and pressed firmly with the iron for about 30 seconds in each spot until I had iron down the entire design.

Carefully pull off the transfer paper to reveal your design. You may need to re-iron stubborn spots.

So now we are finished with the heat transfer portion of the shirt. Onto the rhinestones...
You pretty much do the same thing you do with the heat transfer...place it where you want it on the t-shirt face-up. Press the iron firmly on the design for about 30-45 seconds. Slowly peel off the transfer paper to reveal your design. I added a few extra rhinestones to the tree for some added bling! :)

You are going to want to flip the shirt inside out and iron the back of the design to be sure it is on there good. Flip it back and you are finished! Ta da! :)

Next is treat boxes...stay tuned...

Super Quick Birthday Card

We were gone camping all weekend and between working all last week and getting ready for our camping trip, I had almost no time to make a card for my daughter's 8th birthday today. I don't even have her "real" present and it is 5:45! It is against all I believe in to go buy a card...especially one for my own child! So I very quickly whipped this up on my Silhouette. I added the ribbon and stamped the sentiment. I outlined the whole thing with a little glitter glue. Better than store bought any day! :)

Stick Figures Welcome Sign

Today is my last weekday before I have to go back to work...boo! I made it very productive though. I finally cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer...there were some pretty gross things in there...yuck! But it's all nice and clean and organized now  :)  I also made another of the danishes, this time with raspberries. I had to have a small taste and it is really yummy (maybe even better than the blueberry)! I am now in the process of making a batch of Andes Creme de Menthe cookies too...I found a bag of the chips in the fridge so I figured, what the heck?

The crafting project is what I'm highlighting here. I have Christmas and Valentines and Easter and 4th of July and Halloween and Fall hangings for my front door. Well what about for the rest of the year? I was inspired by the little stick figures that everyone has on the back of their SUVs or minivans -- not me because I have neither of those vehicles! But I think they're cute and thought they would make a really cool front door plaque. Soooo I bought a cheap wooden plaque from Michaels for $2.99 and acrylic paint for $1. I put 2-3 coats of paint on the plaque.

So now for the stick figures. The Silhouette online store has stick figures! Whoo hoo! People, pets, babies, all kinds of stuff. So I bought the ones I wanted (99 cents each...can't beat that) and cut them out of white vinyl from Expressions Vinyl, along with a welcome sign.

I loaded the vinyl into my Silhouette and customized my cut settings as you see below in the photo.

After I cut out my designs I needed to weed out the parts that I did not use. I did this using the weeding tool.

Next I applied the transfer tape to my design using the scraping tool.

I then carefully lifted the design off the backing.

Next is to decide where to put the design on the plaque. After placing it where I wanted it, I used the scraper tool to adhere it as best I could.

Then I VERY carefully peeled up the transfer paper, pulling the design onto the plaque with the scraper tool as I went along.

Since I am hanging it on my front door I needed to add a ribbon to hang it with. I had some leftover hardware from IKEA and used some bronze ric rack ribbon to adhere to the plaque.

Cute, huh? But it needed something. So I painted part of the edges white, added some rhinestone stickers and wa-la...perfection!

I sprayed it with Krylon's Preserve It and hung it on the front door. I didn't include a picture of it on the door because the whole front of our house is getting prepped for paint and it, along with the front door, are not picture-worthy at this time! :-)