One More Homemade Christmas Gift from 2015

Last summer I posted pictures of some gifts that I had made for 2015 Christmas. Money was tight that year, because we were gearing up to start renovations on our home prior to selling it. 

Home decor projects made with regular vinyl are very affordable to make, so one of my projects was a cooky jar for my then 22 year old son.  He loved it and took it with him to college. The container was one I found at Walmart, which only cost about $3. I filled it with Costco cookies.

To make the design, I found clip art on the internet of Chewbacca, which I turned into a cutting file.  I used a font called Star Jedi to label it.

For those wondering if I still do paper crafting, yes, I do. I have been gathering my pictures, and taking pictures of the things I have made but didn't take time to post during our renovating, decluttering, packing, moving, and unpacking days.  I'm actually surprised at how much crafting I squeezed in, but mostly it was because I had a regular scrapping day each month with my friends.

Two More HTV Projects

The above is an apron, using a design from the Silhouette Design Store that I had cut and had ready for about a week. However, the heat press uses a lot of power, so I don't want to do just one project at a time.  The phrase was cut with Silhouette heat transfer vinyl (HTV), which was much harder to work with.  It took several tries with the heat press. I even increased the heat (which had worked fine for the shirt below), and it still took several pressings to get the Silhouette vinyl to stick. The HTV which I prefer to work with is the Siser brand, and which I get from Vinyl Outlet when I visit Salt Lake City. Thankfully, it looks like they do ship, because I'm going to want more of the good HTV. I won't be buying any more of the Silhouette brand vinyl. I had heard it was not as good, but I had already bought some. Now I understand why it is not as good.

The panda shirt below was a phrase which I saw on a meme and decided to put on a shirt.  The pandas are from the Silhouette Design Store.

I know that my HTV projects have been pretty simple, but I'm pretty new to this type of project.

Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV) Projects

These are my first heat transfer vinyl projects using a heat press. I have done a couple of t-shirts before, just using a regular iron. That was a pain. The heat press was much easier. The bib was my first project. I had it on hand, so I figured it was no loss if I messed up. The phrase on the bib was from the Silhouette store.  The t-shirt phrase was also from the Silhouette design store, but I tweaked it by incorporating other designs.  I added the musical notes, the dancer, and changed out the word "dance" with one from another  Silhouette design store file.  I was very happy with how it turned out.

On a recent trip to Salt Lake City, I had visited the Vinyl Outlet store with my daughter. They have a bunch of projects on display in a room there, including a black t-shirt with a filigree pumpkin. I bought a sheet each of the orange and green glitter HTV, but when I came home, I could not find any design at Silhouette or online that was nearly as nice as the one on display at the store.  It turns out, it was the project for a class. So I created my own version.  It's not exactly like the one they had, but close enough. The leafy flourish I used was from the Silhouette store.  I copied, welded, subtracted, and drew some things with my mouse, using the Silhouette software. It took me awhile to create it.  I could have done the entire thing from scratch, but I'm lazy, and it would have taken me a lot longer. 

More HTV projects to come later!