How to Transfer T-Shirt Designs

Making your own t-shirt designs is easy with the help of transfer paper. This paper is designed to let you print your own designs at home and just use an iron to apply it to a t-shirt. This is perfect if you want to commemorate an event such as a reunion or big family vacation. You can also just play around and let your creative juices flow.

Knowing how to transfer t-shirt designs will allow you to create custom designs in the comfort of your home. You can play around with different ideas and do this easily and affordably.

What You'll Need:

• Quality t-shirt transfer paper


• Preshrunk cotton t-shirts


• Printer


• Iron

1. Choose a high resolution photo or image for your t-shirt. Low resolutions will result in blotchy pictures that can be pixelated when you print them out.


2. Edit the image as you need. You may need to resize the picture or image depending on how large it is and where you are placing it on the t-shirt. Also remember to reverse the image so it will show correctly on the shirt after it's been transferred. A lot of photo editing software will call this 'mirror' imaging.


3. Print the image. Allow the paper to settle for at least 15 minutes before you do anything else. This will let the ink dry completely.


4. Cut the image out. You want to cut as close to the image as possible without cutting the actual image.


5. Set your iron to the cotton setting. If you set it higher than this the image may yellow slightly. A lower setting won't allow the image to transfer completely.


6. Iron the shirt to remove any wrinkles. Stretch the shirt out as much as you can where you will be placing the image.


7. Place the image on the shirt in the desired location. Use pressure and slowly iron the transfer on to the shirt. Follow the directions provided by the transfer paper manufacturer to determine how long you need to iron.


8. Allow the t-shirt to settle for a few minutes.


9. Remove the transfer paper.


10. When you wash the t-shirt you should turn it inside out. This will prevent damage to the transfer image during laundering.