Printing on fabric, the easy way!

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a blog post that showed you how to sew up some pretty darn cute baby TOM look a-likes. Since I know a ton of people who are having babies, I thought I would give it a try and hope they turn out alright! Well, I finished my first pair, and they were hideous. Seriously people, I am not that bad on a sewing machine and I botched them pretty good! We will see if I ever find the confidence to try that again, lol. (You can find the tutorial and free pattern here!)

During the process, I had desperately wanted to add the cute little tags with their names on them just like the tutorial! One problem. All of the tutorials for DIY tags either called to send the fabric away, or buy transfer paper, two options which are way out of my price range for my little projects! Yes, I am more frugal than being frugal... Then I found a YouTube video that showed how to simply print directly onto some cotton fabric using your basic, at home printer. Perfect. Except, she called for some pretty hefty glue/spray which also defeated my frugal attempts. So I just played around till I got it right! This is the conclusion I came to.

First attempt;
I cut my piece of fabric, slightly smaller than a regular 8x10 piece of paper that I grabbed from my printer. Then I used a regular glue stick, and glued the fabric to the paper, so that the edge of the paper was larger than the fabric and the printer had something to grab onto. I then Ironed both sides of the fabric and paper, and was almost convinced that I was amazing and was going to succeed! This was an epic fail, because the glue was obviously not strong enough to hold the fabric in place as it slid through the printer! It just got caught and the fabric wouldn't run through.

SO, I gave up. Then I came back a few days later cause I really wanted to makes these baby TOMS look amazing!

Second attempt;
I cut another piece of fabric, same as before, slightly smaller than my piece of paper. This time, I used duct tape on the edges so that it laid flat and to make sure that the fabric didn't move around or come off of the paper. WIN!




It was super simple, I had everything I needed right at home, and I got great results. For some of you, this would be an awesome, affordable way to create custom garment tags for the products you sell on ETSY! The photos are pretty much self explanatory.


A few things to keep in mind;

1. Make sure to iron the fabric before printing so when it feeds through the printer, it doesn't come out all wonky.

2. When creating your images or text, make sure to place it near the middle of the document, not near the edges! If it's too close to the edges, it will miss the fabric. (I used photoshop to create my images, settings were "U.S. paper" at 8.5 x 11 inches.)

3. For the best results, use a light coloured fabric!



So in the end, I did figure out how to get some great looking tags printed onto fabric for next to nothing! But I still have yet to create cute baby slippers...

Valentines Day for the Hubs!

It's less than a month away, have you thought about what you are going to do for your husband yet?
Well I seen this posted on another blog, and thought it was brilliant! After over 3 years of marriage, battling immigration for the first 3, 2/half year old twins and both of us working, our "sparks" have fizzled down. Note; I said down but not out!!! Valentines Day usually just comes and go's with no gift exchanges, no cards, just some time spent together on the couch cuddling and watching some movies after the boys go to bed. Which is fine by me, I hate "stuffed" anythings. They just get dusty and take up space cluttering my house!!! And I am pretty sure I am not the only momma out there who feels the same way. ( About the romance fizzling, not the stuffies! ) It is SO hard to find time for yourself little own time for romance! Kids, Cleaning, & Groceries practically take up a whole day! It never ends with little ones around. Imagine sending this to your hubby's office, what a laugh he would get! So perhaps this might help you and your husband to take a little time together, have a few laughs, and re-kindle that romance. Or at least pig out and watch a good movie! =) Hehe.

If you would like to use this as a gift for your husband, you can check out the listing on my ETSY shop. Only $1.99
RIGHT HERE!

My Latest Obbsession...

Ever since I was a teenager I have loved to play around in photo editing programs making collages, web layouts, and many other things. This lead me to eventually owning my own website/blog which I coded in HTML and designed myself! Those days are long gone now because raising twins takes up practically all of my time and web design is a fairly timely process. But lately I have been spending way too many late nights creating some graphics that I hope are of some use to some other creative individuals! Slowly stoking up my ETSY, in hopes to make a sale or two.
I love creating, and this is just one way to get some creativeness out of me and not loose it completely while being in the moment of mommy-hood. =) Here is a sneak peek of what I have been working on, as well as you can see some more in my ETSY shop! ( There is a link on my sidebar =)




My ETSY Shop ♥

On another note, I hope everyone is enjoying their spring so far! I have had high hopes of puddle splashing, park playing and bike riding to get out of the house and kill those winter blues with the twins but mother nature has a different idea. We have been having one of the worst springs that I can remember for a long time. We will get a couple of days of decent weather, getting all excited and spending some time outside and than "BANG", we get a huge snow dumping! Talk about a buzz kill. It is April and we are getting dumped with snow as I speak. I am not going to lie, it is kind of depressing. I still have hopes that this will all melt in the next few days and we can finally put winter behind us, but I guess we will just have to wait and see! *FINGERS CROSSED!*

In the mean time why not join everyone over at For The Love of Blogs? Have a happy weekend!