Back to the now old fashioned iron-on inkjet transfers.
This is yet another in the "we're mad on kiteing" series
. This time I've created the goodie bags for us to give out to all the other teams at the World Championships. My hubby was going to do this, but then got overwhelmed with late nights at work, so I took over. He'd ordered blank tote bags, because even though he's better with a sewing machine than me, he knew he'd be busy, just not how busy.
So, I took our team's logo, reversed it, and printed it out on the cheapo unbranded transfer paper he'd bought. (Bad idea, my advice: pay the extra, get quality.) I cut the logos out, curving the corners so there would be less lift off. Then I ironed all the bags, all 16 of them. I made myself a template so the prints would all be in roughly the same place on the bags. The next bit was a lot of trial & error.
The instructions on the packet said, turn the iron onto it's hottest setting, press down and iron the print on a hard surface, cardboard was recommended. So first of all, of course, I tried that. Bah Humbug
the print singed if I pressed the iron down long enough to seal it to the surface. One sepia toned print then. So the next time I decided to keep the iron moving all the time, it took ages, but still singed
, so that was 2 sepia toned prints. The third time I turned the iron down a little, still singed, but markedly reduced, so the fourth time I turned it down a little more: this time it took ages to seal, but did so without singing
. Unfortunately the peel off paper failed to do so entirely on those last two. So, 2 very sepia toned prints, one slightly sepia print with a snippet of paper still on, and one nice print with a snippet of paper. So I carried on, number 5 & 6 were ok, no paper left on, number 7 came out a bit stripy, number 8 came out even more stripy
and with a snippet of paper left on
. I looked a little harder and it was the same pattern as the ridges in the corrugated cardboard, so out went the cardboard. I didn't have anymore cardboard of an appropriate size without corrugations so I decided to try the padded ironing board. Number 9 came out with no stripes
. There was one more of the batch that came out with a bit of paper stuck on. A couple came out with incomplete sealing, but that could be easily rectified with a little more ironing on the backing paper. So final count is 3 sepia toned prints, 4 with paper stuck on, 2 stripy and 8 good ones.
. Minimum needed were 15. I decided I could live with the sepia and the stripes, but the stuck on paper was a problem. I peeled off what I could but the paper delaminated
. I wondered if I could re-iron to loosen it- it bonded stronger to the bag
.
So the next try was to wet the paper and rub it off (like the packing tape transfers!), that worked in the 3 remaining bags, but not on the one I'd re-ironed
So, after all that, here is my stack of 15 useable bags
. The perfect number
.
