Babies are so much fun to make things for! I’ve been wanting to make some Harry Potter themed shirts for someone and found my opportunity yesterday, when I was told the newest member of our family was almost here.
I grabbed some onesies from the store and got to work designing two different shirts. Since both shirts had black vinyl, I combined both designs to cut out all black vinyl at once then cut my gold foil to reduce my time spent cutting. So you’ll notice both designs shown in my photos.
Layering different colors on the shirt is super simply. After I created the design with two different colored vinyls in mind, I changed the fill color of the parts I wanted to make out of gold foil and then grouped them together to move them as one and did the same for black. Right Click>Release Compound Path allows your design to be separated by each cut.
After you release the compound path each cut line will be highlighted. Deselect the parts of the design you don’t want gold by holding down shift as you click them. Don’t forget about the insides of the o,e,a..etc.
I switched my color to Gold (yellow) by opening the fill color window and continued to change the other parts of the design to black and the insides of the letters to white to give me an idea of the finished product.
Once you change the colors for the different vinyl cuts, while they are still highlighted, right click again and select Make Compound Path. Do this for each color.
I always make a new work space for cutting. File>New. It should open up to the Design Page Settings, if it doesn’t you can find it on the top right menu bar. I resize my page size to the size of the shirt space. Head back to your design to highlight and copy the entire design by Edit>Select All>Copy. Back to the new page to Edit>Paste. Resize if necessary. Note: I made two shirt designs on one page but only one had gold foil.
When making a shirt, the vinyl has to be cut out as a mirrored image so you need to mirror the image BEFORE cutting. Open up the Replicate window to mirror your image.
You can mirror it any way but Mirror Left and Mirror Right are easiest. Once you have the design mirrored, you can remove the other one from the page. Since the different colors of the design are grouped, we can slide off the gold colored off the mat to cut the black first.
*Always be sure to have your cut settings correct before starting and test cut your material first. See my previous blog post for cut settings and test cuts.*
Once they are cut and weeded, iron the spot where your design will go on your previously washed shirt. Apply one color of your vinyl design to the shirt and iron down. After it has cooled and you’ve removed the plastic backing, place the second color so it fits in in the design and repeat the same steps. I like to throw a cloth over the vinyl again and iron after I have removed all backing.
I found some shiny gold tissue paper and a red bag. I quickly cut out the Deathly Hallows symbol for the bag. I was thrilled with the end results – needless to say, the newest muggle will be rockin’ in a wizardly style!