Artesprix Iron On Ink ”My Stuff” Tote Bag

Hi, it’s Mandie from Mandie’s Scrappin’ Guest Designing today on the Artesprix Blog! I have a fun Tote Bag project to share today using the awesome new Sublimation Acrylic Paint which is a great form of their Iron On Ink. I had so many fun ideas run through my head when I got this awesome paint, especially because it seems I’ve been doing a lot of paint projects lately. I’ve also been using my Cricut for many projects so I thought it would be fun to combine paint and my Cricut machine. 

 

First, I grabbed a sheet of plain copy paper out of my printer. One of the things I love the most about Artesprix Iron On Inks is the fact that I don’t need to have expensive equipment in order to create some great sublimation projects. Next I grabbed a brush and started making random brush strokes all over my sheet of paper. I did one color at a time (red, yellow, and blue) and then just kept filling it in and allowing the wet colors to blend a bit in spots.

Next I let that dry overnight, just to make sure everything was completely dry. Then I did up my design on my Cricut. I used a rectangle shape and added a notebook paper edge for some fun, then added “My Stuff” in a fun font.

 

Then I set my Cricut to “Paper” and let it do it’s thing! If you don’t have a Cricut, you could still do a fun border with punches and hand cut the letters with an craft knife for a similar look. Something important to note – cut it on the Mirror setting (or trace your letters backwards if you are hand cutting)…

And here you can see my design all cut out! Notice, I totally forgot to Mirror my project, so make sure to Mirror or Reverse your design.

 

Next you’re going to heat up your heat press – you’ll want to check the exact temperature on your specific blank for this step. For this Tote Bag, Artesprix recommends 400 for 45 seconds with medium pressure. Because this is a fabric item you will also want to lint roll before press. While your press is heating up, you can add the Protective Paper to the inside of your bag to prevent the ink from transferring to the other side.

For fabric projects I like to use a temporary adhesive spray, like you would use for a quilting pattern, to hold my design in place. You can also just use Heat Tape, but for this I wanted to make sure my decorative edge didn’t get out of place.

Once it’s coated, you place it face down on to your Tote Bag. Then you want to add your Protective Paper to the top of the design to protect your press.

Now you’ll want to put this on the press, your sublimation sandwich should be, the Tote Bag with the Protective Paper inside, then your design facedown on top, then the Protective Paper sheet on top. If you have a pressing pillow you can use it under the tote bag to ensure most even pressure, especially if you have a larger sized press like the one shown.

Now you’ll press… you can dance a little jig or just dream up the next amazing project you want to create – however you want to make 45 seconds pass is up to you!

Then you will release the pressure and reveal your design. One advantage to taping the design is you can lift a corner to peek and make sure your design colors have fully transferred with out the danger of it shifting on you. I was pretty confident in my design so I just revealed my masterpiece!

Remember when I stressed the importance of mirroring? Well, I mirrored my photo to show off my design. Yes, I did realize my error before I pressed, but I LOVED what I did so much I realized that it is actually the PERFECT design for my crazy, busy life, that I wouldn’t change for the world – so I’m owning my awesome new tote bag for all my important stuff!

 

I should also announce that I have been asked to join the Artesprix Design Team so you'll be seeing more fun projects with awesome Artesprix materials soon! 

Project Supply List:

Sublimation Acrylic Paint

Tote Bag Blank

Protection Paper

 

Other-

Copy paper

Cricut Machine

Heat Press

Pattern Stick Temporary Adhesive

Easy DIY Gnome Wine Tumblers with Artesprix Iron-On Ink

Hi, my name is Mandie Wade and I am excited to be an Artesprix Guest Design Team Member today. I’ve been married to by high school sweetheart for 20 years, we have 2 beautiful daughters and I’ve had a passion for crafting my whole life. I love exploring different mediums and have recently discovered sublimation. My first love is paper crafting so I’ve been trying to figure out how I could incorporate my love of paper with sublimation when I discovered the amazing Artesprix Iron on Ink Markers and Stamp Pads 

I knew it would be a natural fit with my love of stamping and doodling to create something fun. Lately, like much of the world, I’ve been obsessed with gnomes, so I decided that I absolutely needed to create a Gnome Wine Tumbler for myself! And of course, I could have just made one, but wine is better with friends so I decided to try a couple of techniques so I would have tumblers to share.

For this project you will need:

Artesprix Blank Tumblers

Artesprix Stamp Ink Pad

a variety of Artesprix Iron on Ink Markers:

    Black Sublimation Markers

    Pastel Sublimation Markers

    Gnomie Botanical Sublimation Markers

    Original Sublimation Markers

Artesprix Heat Tape

Artesprix Tumbler Wrap

Heat Gun

Craft Convection/Toaster Oven

Stamps

Copy Paper

 How to Make Gnome Wine Tumblers with Artesprix Iron-on Inks

 Step 1: Set your Craft Convection Oven to 375 degrees F to preheat.

 Step 2: Measure the flat surface of your Artesprix Blank Tumbler (above where it curves) to determine about how tall your design can be. Then use a piece of copy and draw your image with the Artesprix Iron-on Ink Markers. You can also use the Artesprix Stamp Ink Pad and any stamps you own to create your design. I happened to have a set of fun gnome stamps, so I used a couple of those images for one of my tumblers. For the other I used some inspiration from the internet to draw my own gnome, holding a glass of wine.

Step 3: Remove the lid, adhesive labels and loose parts from the Artesprix Blank Tumbler.

Step 4: Trim down the design leaving a border that you can use to apply the Artesprix Heat Tape to your tumbler. If you have multiple designs, cut them out individually and tape as needed.

Note: Only use Heat Tape on the outer edge of your design, not over it, as the heat resistant characteristic of the tape will affect the consistency of the transfer.

 Step 5: Place your tumbler into the Artesprix Tumbler Wrap and use the Heat Tool to shrink the wrap to fit the tumbler.

Note: Work quickly and move from area to area so the wrap doesn’t overheat.

 

 Step 6: Place the Tumbler into the designated Craft Toaster/Convection Over. I baked my designs for 4 minutes, then flipped my mug over and rotated it towards the back of the oven and baked another 3 minutes.

Note: DO NOT leave Heat Source unattended.

Step 7: I discovered that I could clearly see the image through the Tumbler Wrap when the image had fully transferred. Then I carefully removed my Tumbler from the oven and set it aside to cool.

 

Step 8: Once fully cooled, remove the Tumbler Wrap and reveal your finished design! This is really fun to do with a friend in the room, to ooh and aaah with you! If you’re done crafting, make sure you’ve turned your oven off.

Make sure you take a look at some of the other amazing projects that other designers have created with Artesprix Iron-On Inks! I’m looking forward to personalizing more projects for myself, and my friends and family soon with the awesome blanks the Artesprix has to offer!

Cricut Infusible Ink Instructions and Project

Hello again! I've been so busy craftng that I haven't had as much time to blog! I'm going to be using my Instagram account more for my crafting in the future, so feel free to follow me @manhattanmandie to see the latest projects!

Anyway, I was lucky enough to get to go to the Cricut Infusible Ink Launch, since it was here in Chicago! Here are a few of the fun photos I took at my store and and the Launch party! Yes, we do travel with our Cricuts.... the stuffed version of course!

There are a few of the different ink transfer sheets I purchased first thing in the morning!

Look at all the beautiful patterns and colors that are available!

Lori, Betsy and I in line to see, touch and buy all the fun new Infusible Ink projects and products!

We also got to meet the AWESOME Cricut CEO, Ashish Arora! I love how much he loves Cricut and that he appreciates how much we love Cricut too!

And another look at the backdrop with some awesome ideas, I seriously LOVE the flamingo shirts... think he's going to be project #2 for me! Also, my new Cricut Cutie matches my machine!

So on to me testing this one out! I designed my project in Design Space and read and reread the instructions that you can find right HERE. And yes, seriously read them, watch the videos on the Infusible Ink webpage... I can tell you, this is NOT one of those fly by the seat of your pants type projects!

Oh, also here's some pointers I picked up at the Launch... Don't Touch your Ink Transfer Sheets with wet, damp, slightly moist, sweaty or otherwise not DRY hands (or anything else), the ink will transfer and leave your sheet uneven. Lint roll, lint roll and if your think you've done enough, do one more... ANYWHERE the heat press or Easy Press will be sitting while your design is transferring. The lint will also transfer it's color to your project because of the long press time. And use the Heat Guide provided by Cricut right HERE to help you determine time and temperature. And finally, Cricut will only guarantee the results on their Cricut Blanks, although it will work with high polyester content fabrics (but again, the results are not guaranteed).

Step One: Cut out your design, MIRRORED and weed it. Here is what my design looks like partially weeded... and save those scraps for future projects! You know I will!  There is a Custom Materials Setting for the Infusible Ink sheets, that's what I used here.

Heat up your Cricut Easy Press or your Heat Press. You can NOT use an iron to do this and expect good results. The iron doesn't have a large enough surface are and will NOT get hot enough. I used the Easy Press 2 instructions with my Heat Press, setting it to 385 degrees for 45 seconds.

Once it's hot, you're going to put your Easy Press Mat inside your shirt (or tote bag) covered with a piece of white card stock. On top you will place your butcher paper, it comes with your Ink Transfer Sheeets. Then pre-heat for 15 seconds. Then let the shirt COOL DOWN. If you don't the ink may start to transfer before it's lined up properly. You definitely don't want that!

Now that it's cool you will remove the butcher paper, set your design where you want it to be and then put the butcher paper on top of that. This is going to prevent ink from transferring to your heat press plate.

Next your will press your shirt for the full 40 seconds. I'll admit, pressing this hot made me nervous... you may also notice that, Hey! That's not a Cricut Blank! Nope, it's one of my work out tanks that I've been dying to put something on. It is 92% Polyester and 8% Spandex so I figured it would work... and also, if I mess up my first project... well, I'd still wear it to work out, and I didn't mess up a $10 shirt! After that 40 seconds, you're going to want to carefully lift your pressing plate from your project (not as much of a concern with the heat press, but you don't want your project to shift at all). Now, impatiently (or patiently, who am I to judge) wait for your project to cool a little. It says you can hot peel this, and they were hot peeling at the demos, but when I was reading I heard that if your base is still hot you can accidentally transfer ink to other parts of the shirt. I'm pretty clumsy so I wasn't taking any chances.... the above photo shows the already transferred design cooling down a bit on my shirt, I've already removed the butcher paper.

And finally, you'll carefully peel away your ink transfer sheet to reveal your design! How awesome is this???? It's exactly what I was hoping for and turned out how I imagined!!!! Now, to go get ready for spin class so I can show off my NEW work out shirt!

I hope you've enjoyed learning a little bit about how to make your own Infusible Ink shirt!

Funny Cruise Shirts

Today I've got two more fun Cruise Shirts to share! The first uses a gorgeous pink glitter HTV on a very soft cotton tank top.

The shirt below uses the new Siser Electric HTV. It has this really great metallic sheen that is really hard to capture in a photo, but looks amazing in person!

I look forward to creating more shirts with fun specialty finishes on them!

Local Business Shirts

Today I'm sharing a fun shirt for a local business. They have a kid's club so each month a winning kid gets to pick a shirt color and number and they win a free personalize shirt!

For privacy I will just tell you about the back, we add their last name in a Varsity style font and their number, like a fun baseball shirt! I'm so thankful that I can team up with local businesses to create fun shirts! 

Cruise Ship Shirts

Today I wanted to share these fun shirts I made for my friend on her parent's anniversary cruise. I thought this was such a fun idea!

And it's also good to have you kid warning others too! I love the way these shirts came out!

Burpees Sarcastic Workout Shirt

So I've also been working out to get myself in shape and of course I had to make myself some sarcastic workout shirts! Burpees are my most hated exercise, so I had to use this fabulous Coral Glitter Vinyl to make this shirt!

Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I need to put Sorry Not Sorry on the back.... because I'm NOT sorry, I really hate Burpees!