Using Heat Transfer Vinyl with an Easy Press: A Step-by-Step Guide

When it comes to creating custom designs on fabric, heat transfer vinyl is a popular choice among crafters and DIY enthusiasts. One of the most essential tools for working with heat transfer vinyl is the easy press, a heat-activated tool that makes the process of applying vinyl to fabric quick and easy. In this article, we will walk you through the steps involved in using heat transfer vinyl with an easy press.

First, it's essential to prepare your workspace by setting up your easy press and materials. The author starts by positioning their easy press on a heat-resistant surface, ensuring that it is stable and secure. They also place a piece of parchment paper or a specialized easy press mat underneath the press, which helps prevent damage to the table or countertop. Next, they select the type of vinyl they want to use, in this case, everyday iron-on, and their base material, which is cotton.

To begin, the author preheats their easy press to 315 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature recommended for most heat transfer vinyl projects. They also ensure that their project is ready, having cut out the design from the vinyl and removed any excess material. With the press at the correct temperature, the author applies a small amount of pressure to the center of the press, ensuring that it is securely in place.

Now it's time to apply the heat transfer vinyl to the fabric. The author carefully places the vinyl on top of the design, making sure that the shiny side is facing down. They then begin weeding out the background, removing excess vinyl from around the letters and other designs. This process requires patience and attention to detail, as it's easy to accidentally remove too much vinyl or leave behind unwanted residue.

Once the author has removed most of the excess vinyl, they use a tool to carefully scrape away any remaining adhesive from the transfer tape. This is an essential step, as leftover adhesive can cause problems with future transfers. With the design now free from excess vinyl and transfer tape, the author moves on to the next step: applying the design to their fabric.

To do this, the author lines up the seam at the bottom of the project, aligning it with the edge of the easy press. They then applies a small amount of pressure to the center of the press, ensuring that it is securely in place. With the press pressed down, the author waits 30 seconds for the heat transfer vinyl to activate and bond with the fabric.

After the recommended time has passed, the author carefully peels away the transfer tape, revealing their beautifully transferred design. To ensure a smooth finish, they take care not to let the project cool completely before removing the tape. Instead, they slowly peel it away while the project is still warm, which helps prevent wrinkles or other imperfections.

The final step involves inspecting the finished project and making any necessary adjustments. In this case, the author is pleased with the results, noting that the transferred design looks almost identical to professionally made custom bandanas. She credits the easy press with making the process quick and easy, allowing her to create custom designs with ease.

Tips and Tricks for Using Heat Transfer Vinyl with an Easy Press

Working with heat transfer vinyl can be a fun and rewarding experience, but it requires attention to detail and patience. Here are some tips and tricks that the author has learned during their experience:

* Always preheat your easy press according to the manufacturer's instructions.

* Ensure that your project is ready, having cut out the design from the vinyl and removed any excess material.

* Use a heat-activated tool like an easy press to apply the heat transfer vinyl to fabric quickly and easily.

* Take care when weeding out excess vinyl, as it can be easy to remove too much or leave behind unwanted residue.

* Use a tool to carefully scrape away any remaining adhesive from the transfer tape to prevent problems with future transfers.

Conclusion

Using heat transfer vinyl with an easy press is a great way to create custom designs on fabric. With the right materials and techniques, you can achieve professional-looking results in no time. Whether you're looking to create custom bandanas, scarves, or other fabrics, this article has provided you with the knowledge and skills necessary to get started. By following these steps and tips, you'll be well on your way to becoming a pro at working with heat transfer vinyl and an easy press.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi guys welcome back to my channel or if you're new here welcome i'm brooke i make lifestyle travel and diy videos in this video i'm going to be kicking off a new series of diy qriket projects so i got a qriket for christmas and i've been playing around with it getting my technique right and i finally feel ready to show you guys how to make some beginner projects so these projects are definitely easy enough for a beginner but they look super professional which is why i love them and i'm really excited to share with you guys so today we're going to be starting off with beautiful cardstock garland and then we're going to be moving into vinyl iron-on transfer projects so i'm going to show you guys step by step how to do everything so when you guys are ready you can create your own so if you haven't already don't forget subscribe below give this video a big thumbs up and without further ado let's get into it so we're going to start with our cardstock letters i wanted to use this as kind of a measuring stick for what size the letter should be in qriket design space you can grab the corner and make it as big or as small as you want however you can also choose the size up at the top there's a bar where you can choose the width and the height so the height should be about five inches that's about the size of the ones that you would buy on amazon so now i'm going to type in what i'm going to make today so i'm ready to create my next project so i went to the canvas and i clicked text box and i wrote in the words that i wanted and then i went over to the font area and i selected the font that i wanted from here you can go to filters and click my fonts and it'll just show you the free fonts or you can purchase additional ones for 4.99 or you can buy them from other creators but i just chose to use one of the fonts that it came with then i went over to images and in images i search engagement rings so i scroll through so i found this one that i really like so i had added it to my canvas but i already have it there so i'm just going to press cancel and i've decided that i'm going to use the ring as the o so i resized it to kind of make it fit so i could see what it looks like now right now this would be super small and i wanted to be a big banner so i'm not going to cut it right now i just wanted to make sure i like the font i like the idea and now i'm going to go in the text box and i'm going to see how many letters i can fit at once but i want my letters to be at least five inches so i'm gonna make sure my letters are five inches i like that now i'm gonna go to the top click make it all right we're gonna go to the left make sure we mirror the image if it's facing the right way on the computer it's gonna face the wrong way when you cut it out okay so now we are going to pick we have medium cardstock we're going to do more for the pressure just to make sure it goes all the way through so for this project i'm going to be using gold metallic cardstock and then i've decided that i'm going to use my light grip mat so now i'm going to be removing the film and i'm going to be placing my cardstock face down i've now put my card stock face down on my mat we're going to stick the mat in all right our load button is ready to go right loaded in really nicely and now we are ready to cut our project is done and it is nothing to unload so now it has cut out the project so the best way to remove your project instead of bending the project up and away from the mat which can cause creasing to your project we're just gonna flip over the mat and we're to peel the mat away from the project all right now we can just pop these out i did want to note that if you put your letters in and you're going slightly over where you need to be you can come up to the top and do letter space and you can put the letters closer together so of course you still want them to be far away enough that you can have individual cuts and they're not touching but by reducing the letter space i was able to fit three letters instead of two another tip is if you're not sure if it cut all the way through if you're kind of working with the tricky material or you're just not sure if it did before you unload the mat just press the cricut cut button one more time and it can re-cut for you if you unload the mat and then put it back in it might be slightly off and is not going to cut in the exact same place so if you're not sure and you just want to double check don't unload it yet so i finished with the letters so i have he put a ring and then on it so for the o i'm doing the ring so i just went into images and i brought the ring back and i used the n for sizing so i know what size to do this but now i don't need the n now that i know what size it is so now i'm going to cut this on gold paper and then i'm going to re-cut just the diamond on blue paper and then i'm going to glue it on so that it'll look like the diamond is blue so for my base i don't want the cricut making all of these additional cuts so i'm gonna go over here and hide the detailing so now i'm just going to have the silhouette so i'm just going to cut the silhouette into the gold despite it looking like a single piece unfortunately the diamond is not connected so i'm just going to cut the diamond into the blue cardstock directly and then looks like we're going to have to get a little creative with tape or glue so the blue diamond base is done and this actually looks super cute oh my gosh i'm so excited so now i instead i made this one visible and then i hid the base of the ring and the base of the diamond so now i just have this portion so now i'm gonna go ahead and make this i'm gonna make sure i mirror the image all right so now i cut out the intricate design so now i'm going to glue these on top of each other and then i'm gonna glue glue this on however i will say i'm kind of curious what it would look like having the reflections in white i think i might cut it in white as well and see which one looks better so i'm trying the diamond a few other ways so we have the blue on blue and then i didn't have white card stock so i printed it on the back or i just cut it out of the gold in reverse so here's what the white looks like and then with the ring it does look good so i was asking darren's opinion and he had the idea of doing a white base instead of the blue base with the white detail so i just printed the gold and then i'm going to use the back of it and i think that actually looks a lot more like a diamond so now i'm going to glue these together and then we can hole punch and string these into a garland so now it's time to start hole punching unfortunately with this font it's slightly too small to hole punch in the middle if i were to just put both sides in at once so i'm just going to do one side at a time and hole punch all the letters i just finished hole punching so now it's time to string them all together and voila the garland is done this is going to look amazing at some of my friends engagement parties i can't wait to bring it i'm probably going to switch out the string to either white string or ribbon or gold but i just love how this turned out especially this intricate work i did with the diamond i think it was so worth it hey guys it's a couple days later i brought you back because we're going to do our first iron on vinyl transfer together so i'm going to be using cricut everyday iron on vinyl and then for my surface i'm going to be using these cute little valentine's day pup bandanas so i'll be putting each of my pups names on them so before i get started i have to do a quick wash for these because these are not pre-shrunk material so i need to throw them in the washer and dryer real quick because otherwise when i do wash these the material will shrink but the vinyl won't so the vinyl will become like all wavy and ripply and i don't want that so i'm going to go ahead and throw these in a quick wash and while those are washing i'm going to prep the vinyl so once these come out of the dryer we will be ready to start our transfer so i'll take you guys along for every step and let's get started so i'm not sure what size to make the letters so this bandana is the size that i'm washing right now and then just for the sake of measuring i just brought in some of those bandanas that you put the collar through so i can measure the font and see which one would be best so this one is an inch and a half one inch and an inch and a half so i feel like an inch and a half i feel like that's a good size i feel like this is a good size to have on yeah i really like that okay so i'm going to do my font an inch and a half next for picking out my vinyl i could do glitter i don't know that we need to do glitter though okay i think i have white okay i have a whole bunch of different colors in here but i kind of feel like black would look really good so i think i'm gonna use black vinyl i think with the white and red black would look really really good so i'm gonna bring out a sheet of black and actually i think i have a yep i have a partial black sheet that i think i could fit at least one name on and then a full black sheet as well so i think if you were to ask anyone that's done this before they would tell you to use the green standard mat however the green mat is almost too sticky for me and i know you could like pat it down with your hands or rub it against like a piece of material to transfer some of like the lint and such to make it less sticky but i don't see why i would do that when i could just use a light grip so the light grip map is what i made my first projects with and it worked really really well so despite the fact that the green one is technically the correct one i find the blue one easier to work with so i'm going to use blue today so i'm in qriket design space i'm going to go up to new project and i'm gonna go to text i'm gonna write name okay so now i have to pick a font so i'm just gonna it and come up to the fonts i'm going to do filters and my fonts so that it just shows me fonts that are already free and come with the program so let's see so after trying a few fonts i like the font sign painter so i'm going to bring it to the top and i'm just going to go over to height over here 1.5 okay okay and then i'm going to shrink the space between lines that way i can cut it on just a single piece so after measuring my scrap piece of vinyl that i wanted to use i'm going to be able to fit both of these on here so i really like that so i'm going to click make it the most important thing here is that i click mirror and then once again it is showing me how much space it's gonna take up so just a little more than four so basically i want a four by six inch piece so now i'm going to attach the vinyl so i'm gonna peel off the film and you always want to keep the film so that after you print you can put it back on for storage so i'm just going to set that aside so with the vinyl you have the shiny side and you have a matte side you always put the shiny side down so i'm just gonna line it up on here that looks about good this wasn't a completely straight piece of vinyl so that's why it kind of overlaps in some areas but it covers everything that needs to cover so now we're ready to make it so at the bottom right we're going to click continue it's going to connect my machine and then you get to pick your material so let's see here so i have everyday iron on right here however if you didn't see what you wanted you can come here and you can search by category or you can just scroll down and find the type of material that you're cutting but i can exit okay so i'm just gonna do iron everyday iron-on right here because that's what i'm using make sure your mirror is turned on mirror is indeed turned on you can double check right here and then i'm gonna do more pressure default probably would cut it but i really want to make sure that it cuts all the way through so i'm going to do more pressure it shows right here what type of blade you need it has this one requires the fine point blade which is the blade that comes in the machine when you get it so i'm ready to go there and now i'm ready to load the tray so now i'm just going to load the tray and since i decided to print in the top left corner i want to make sure that goes first and then there are little gaps here so i'm going to slide that in there and then the load unload button is blinking so i'm gonna go ahead and press that okay it's loaded in and now the cricut button is blinking so i'm gonna click that so once it's done the qriket unload button is blinking click that and it unloads the project i don't know if you guys can see but it has cut into it so now instead of pulling my vinyl off the project and wrinkling the vinyl i'm going to flip the mat over and instead i'm going to peel the mat away from my project so now my vinyl is wrinkle free so now it's time to weave the project so the shiny side is actually the transfer tape so we don't want to weed that side we're going to weed from the matte side because this is where the actual vinyl is so for weeding basically we're just going to take this weeding tool right here which basically just handheld tool with a little metal hook and we're going to remove the centers of letters for example i'm going to remove the center of the e because if we were to leave that then this would also transfer to the shirt so we want to remove the center of those letters so i have moved e i need to remove the d and the a for sadie and hunter doesn't have anything else to weed just that e so this was a pretty easy weeding project however that's how you would weed if you had any project that required more weeding so now since i have sadie and hunter on the same piece of vinyl i'm going to use my rotary knife so that i can separate them from each other so i can put them on different projects so first i'm going to cut off the excess okay and now i have to separate these so it might even be a little easier from the back let's see here okay so i had to be really careful because i did shrink the space between the letters so luckily i was able to cut them without issues so now they're two separate pieces so now it's time to preheat our easy press so i googled cricut heat guide and here you just select what type of press you have so i have an easy press too and then heat transfer material i have everyday iron on and my base material is cotton okay so i select that and i'm using an easy press mat under it and apply all right so i'm going to want to preheat to 315 degrees fahrenheit and i'm going to let it sit on the material for 30 seconds so i would definitely recommend using the qriket heat guide for every project you make because it has all the different types of materials vinyls as well as all the different types of base materials that way you know when you need to adjust the time the temperature and you can make sure that every single one of your projects turns out perfectly every time so here's my qriket easy press 2. i'm going to turn it on and my last project actually was also set to 315 for 30 seconds so now it's just heating up to that right now now that my easy press is at temperature i'm gonna give this a quick press since it just came out of the dryer it's a bit wrinkled so now that we're ready to transfer we are going to take our vinyl and put shiny side down and from the edge of one of the letters we are going to weed outward we want to get rid of all of the background so the only vinyl left on the page is the letters so now we're going gonna just start peeling that away sure that we don't accidentally peel any of the letters voila so i have one little piece right here i'm just gonna scrape off there we go so now all we have left is hunter so now we have to decide exactly where we want it so the transfer tape is a little sticky so wherever we place it is where it will transfer to so i think maybe right about there perfect so i really like where that is so now we're ready to go so i'm going to move my project to the center and i have my easy press i'm going to lay it directly on top and press the qriket button which starts the timer so now i'm just going to remove so it's been about 30 seconds and it's now just warm to the touch so now i'm going to slowly peel away the transfer tape if some of the vinyl is sticking to your transfer tape just lay it back down and add a couple more seconds to the heat press to make sure that it all transfers so i just ironed sadie's and i weeded out the background so now i'm going to do the same thing i'm going to line up with the seam at the bottom go slightly above so i'm happy with it right here move the project to the middle put the easy press right on the center and press the qriket button and now we just wait 30 seconds again so this just beeped we're gonna remove it so it's been about 20 to 30 seconds so i'm gonna start peeling this away very slowly so i'm feeling slowly because i want to make sure once again everything has transferred and it is important that you don't let it cool completely you want to peel it off while it's still pretty warm so this transferred completely oh my gosh it's so cute oh my gosh i love these so much look how beautiful these have turned out and voila look how beautiful these turned out they seriously look just as good if not better than the ones i paid for on etsy and a lot of the ones on etsy you cannot customize so already by wanting customization the number of scarves i could or bandanas i could choose from had already shrunk so now that i know that i can do this myself one i'm never paying anyone else to do it again two i feel like i can buy any bandana in the world now and customize it to make it super cute i am so excited about this craft honestly i think this might be my favorite one so far and i hope that you guys have liked it too and that you found it helpful in case you guys want to try this yourself thank you guys again so so much for watching if you haven't already don't forget subscribe below give it a big thumbs up and please let me know in the comments if there are any tips and tricks that you want me to try or any projects that you want me to try and show you guys how to make thank you guys again so so much for watching and i'll see you in the next one bye waiting guys a lifetime just keep\n"