Valentine's Day Project

I recently asked on one of my Yahoo groups where to buy iron-on vinyl. Kay from Clever Someday gave me several names and I ended up choosing Specialty Graphics Supply. I was very impressed with the speed of delivery, especially during the holidays! It only took seven days from the time I ordered it to delivery. I ordered late on the 1st, a Friday night of a holiday weekend. Their packing list shows they sent it Monday the 4th and I got it Thursday the 7th. Great!

I originally just wanted to buy a 5 yard length of iron-on black to make some shirts with my logo on them that I wear as a uniform. I've used up the small amount I had on my husband's shirts...I'll have more about his later, and about mine when I finally make them! I need red as well to make mine, although I have some...in browsing the Specialty Graphics site I saw that there was a clearance on HotFix metallic film. It is sold by the foot and I bought 3' for just under $7. It was a little too bright and shiny to use to make my shirts, but the red inspired me to make a Valentine's project. The entire project was made with SCAL1 using two different free fonts.

The first photo below shows the beautiful metallic foil looking red I ordered, along with the direction sheet they included. WOW, love that shine - like a mirror!

Iron-on has to be cut in reverse. Below is the wrong side of the vinyl, showing the white heat activated adhesive. It's cut with this side up. I haven't weeded yet.

Below is the front side, which is face down on the mat while cutting. There is a slightly sticky clear layer face down on top of the red shiny part - when the piece is weeded the stickiness helps hold it in place while you iron. I've started weeding where you see the white mat showing through the lines in the upper lip. I got the lips from a free font called Princess BV Regular, and the horse and heart I cut on the same sheet are from the wonderfully talented Paulo. (I HOPE they're both his, I have them labelled on my computer as though they are! correct me if they aren't!)

Isn't that vinyl gorgeous??

I want to mention here that I'm very picky about my scraps! I cut regular vinyl (on its backing) using my MS snowflake punch and made inserts for my glass blocks (See previous post!) placing the resulting cutouts randomly on the vellum. I haven't tried this vinyl with a punch yet and it seems a little thicker than regular vinyl but I intend to try to use these beautiful scraps in the same way! So before weeding these, I do a lot of trimming close to the cutout to save the scraps intact, clear, tacky backing and all. I've also saved my weeded scraps although I don't know what I can do with them...I've saved the clear tacky layer from what I've ironed on so far, as well, to use with the tiny scraps! Cheap cheap cheap!

I love the way the lips have that rounded, full look...see them weeded, below. The font I used for the text is also free, called Brock Script Regular. This wall quote goes well with the lips, on a Valentines nightshirt project, no? :)

And here it is, ironed on a black sweatshirt. I'm sorry that it doesn't LOOK black, but I guess it's the lighting. I hope you enjoyed this quick look at my vinyl experiment! I'm quite happy with the results, although I don't have a heat press and did this with an old fashioned iron and a Silpat silicone sheet! The Hot Fix vinyl proved to be not only gorgeous, but easy to weed and also to iron on. I just hope it holds up well in the wash! Thanks for looking, now go cut something! :)