Last year our friend Amy passed away and we participated in the Heart Walk in her honor.  This year we were unable to participate in the Heart Walk, but I was able to help the team out and make some shirts for the little ones in the group.  The logo they had for the shirts this year had 2 colors in it and I didn’t want to just cut it all in one color, so decided to create my first multi-colored & multi-layered iron on project!

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How to Upload a Multi- Colored Iron On Project

What you’ll need:

Like I mentioned the logo from the shirts had 2 colors and wasn’t an SVG file, so I knew I’d have a bit of a challenge uploading it and would need to figure out a game plan.

Note: If you have an svg file, then all the layers will import as separate colors and no de-constructing necessary!

I opened up Design Space, clicked the ‘Upload’ link to to the right and selected the logo from my computer.  I selected the ‘Moderately Complex’ image type because the colors had good contrast and there were pretty simple details.

For me to be able to break the logo into the different colors, I needed to ultimately upload 2 images -1 per each color.  Once I selected ‘Moderately Complex’, I needed to remove one of the colors from the logo and save that color as one image and then repeat for the other color.

The good news is that this part was surprisingly easy!  You can click the red parts of the logo with your mouse to erase them.  You can also use the eraser tool (eraser icon above the title Erase) to click over an area and erase it manually.  I did a combination of the two methods to remove all the red parts so just the blue remained.

I saved the blue only image as a cut image, then repeated for the red color as the second image to make up the complete logo.

When both images were saved, I added them to my canvas.  I changed the colors to be more in line with the colors of htv I’d be cutting them on (click on the colored circle to the right and select a color).  Then I put the two images on top of each other to make sure they still lined up nicely. Now that my images were ready, I was ready to cut them on my Maker.  Design Space will separate your mats by color, so I automatically had 2 colors with an image on both.  Since this is an iron on project you’ll need to go to each mat and toggle the ‘Mirror’ option so the image will be cut reversed (and ironed on the correct way).

Then load your first mat with your htv, cut, remove that piece, add your next piece of htv, and cut the second image.

When both images are cut on their own htv, cut the htv around your image to just the size you need.  Now you need to weed the excess htv using the weeder tool.  Okay, time to iron!  Plug in your EasyPress and turn it on to 295 degrees and the timer to 20 seconds.  Place a towel on the ground or a table to create the area for the EasyPress and place the toddler t-shirt on top.  When the EasyPress is warmed up, use it like an iron to get any wrinkles out of the tee and pre-heat the material.

Then place the bottom layer of your design on top of the t-shirt where the sticky side is on the t-shirt.  Place your EasyPress on top and click the C to start the timer.  After the timer is up, put the EasyPress back in it’s safety base.  Slowly remove the clear piece, making sure that the htv is completely attached to the t-shirt.

Next you’ll get the second piece of htv and layer it on top of the already applied teal / blue piece.  Check to make sure all of the design is covered by the clear backing of the htv.  If it isn’t get the piece you just removed from the blue and place it on top.

Note: If heat directly hits the htv it can mess up the htv and ruin the design, so you always want to make sure that there is that clear backing between the htv and heat source.

When the design is in place and all htv is covered, place the EasyPress back on top and click the C to start the timer.  When the timer is up, put it back in the safety base and again slowly remove the clear backing from the htv that should be now firmly applied to your t-shirt.

Done!  Now you have uploaded your own multi-colored image and applied the cut htv in layers to your material.  Your iron on project skills have just gotten better!  Repeat for any remaining shirts you may have.

I was happy to hand these off to our friends and see the pictures of the little ones in them last weekend!  Isn’t he the cutest??

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