A New way to create a T-shirt

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For this tutorial, we will be gel printing a T-shirt an inkjet image transfer sheet from PPD. I used a 8×10” gel plate; alternatively, you could use an inky plate using less ink. 

Printing the transfer

Start with a base of Saltwater Taffy Distress Ink, and brayered to get a smooth coverage. Pull this first layer but don’t worry if the print doesn’t pull all of the ink. Pull another print onto plain paper to clean the plate. Then, using Aged Mahogany, Salvaged Patina and more Saltwater Taffy, stamp using Make Your Mark stamps onto the gel plate. Pull the print using your transfer paper. Clean your plate onto your plain paper and set to one side for now.

Stamp the feature image from Mackintosh Beauty/Mackintosh Windows using an Archival Ink and then use Distress Ink and a water brush to colour. Try to keep the amount of water in your brush to a minimum to avoid flooding the transfer. The feature image needs to be direct stamped rather than using the gel plate; so try to avoid anything that needs to be reversed such as feature text.

Remaining image elements from the two Mackintosh sets should then stamped in either archival or distress ink depending on the colours you have available. These should have lighter outlines than your main image if possible.

Any text you need to have legible should first to be stamped onto your gel plate, and then printed onto the transfer. Using a slightly darker ink for this is a good idea as it will be equivalent of a second generation stamped image. You can also use text directly where you just want to use type as a texture.

Pressing the Transfer

Just follow the instructions on the pack: I loosely trimmed around the design with scissors (not suitable for electronic cutters at all for this one), place coloured side down, press and peel off the backing and press again with a silicon sheet. You can do it with an iron too but it will take longer to transfer.

Care Instructions

DON’T handwash nor use a delicate cycle/cool wash

DO wash at 40ºC and iron on the reverse

DO wash inside out, fast spin and straight onto the washing line or by an airer (avoid direct contact with heat)

For more inspiration with Chocolate Baroque stamps, see Chocolate Baroque Inspiration using the Floral Paraphernalia set.