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 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. Cursesone 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!
