Peek a Boo sublimation shirt tutorial

Innovative Peek a Boo sublimation shirt tutorial, awesome for this Halloween! or to impress someone with a very unique shirt design. 

A few things needed to do this project

• Some image design to sublimate (could be a Halloween one)
• A 100% polyester piece of fabric (the high amount of polyester the better, the highest, and vibrant)
• A T-shirt 
• A cutting board (some cardboard will work instead)
• A rotary cutter 

First steps of the PEEKABOO process

Take the piece of polyester fabric previously cut out by the size of your preference, and run a lint roller over it, especially if it’s a lighter fabric. Before sublimating the image on it, pre-press the fabric for about 10 seconds to remove excess moisture. This will allow the ink to adhere perfectly to the fabric fibers.

• When pre-pressing the fabric make sure you have a piece of butcher paper or Teflon sheet on the top of the fabric and underneath, that’s super necessary to not harm the press!

• Now, go ahead and press the selected image in there. Place the image face down on the fabric and put some heat-resistant tape on it to make sure it doesn’t move, and to avoid any ghosting. Remember that the press should have about 400 degrees to sublimate, and the fabric must be pressed for about 60 seconds.

• As a reminder don’t ever reuse the butcher paper, because the image will show up on your next sublimation!

Cutting Peek a Boo T-Shirt

For this project, it’s needed to cut the T-shirts. Use a cutting board and a Fiskar rotary cutter to make the process easiest. If you don’t have any, some cardboard will work but the only problem with it is you use it once; because in contrast to the cutting board, you can’t reuse it.

Drape the cutting board through the shirt, so it gets in the middle-inside of it. It’s important to cut only what is necessary because the image needs space to glue.

To make sure the cuts are exactly where it was intended to be, take a piece of paper with the size of the design; and place it on the T-shirt. Put it four lengths down of the collar, and check the paper has the same space on each side, tape it down so it doesn’t shift.

• The cuts don’t have to be perfect because this is supposed to be a scary Halloween ripped shirt.

Get a ruler to have an idea of how many inches to cut and make the lines, doing it every half will be cool! The idea of using a piece of paper is to don’t go too far on the borders.

Hooking the T-Shirt and the design together

The T-shirt has been cut, and the piece of polyester has been sublimated on, so now it’s time to hook them together!

Get the shirt and turn it inside out; Then put it face up. So that the slip marks can be seen, put some butcher paper in between the T-shirt and place it in the press. Put some sheets of iron-on adhesive on each side; Making the square all the way around. Check that none of them overlap!. You can cut a little bit if it happens.

Will be noticed that this tape has a smooth surface and a rough surface, the rough surface has to be facedown! then get the butcher paper, and cover the top, press it for about 5 seconds in a lower degree.

• For his case is not needed the piece of butcher paper underneath in the press. The press doesn’t have to be at 400 degrees; the instructions to use the iron-on adhesive is just to use a medium iron.

Peel off the top part of the tape, and there will be shiny glue underneath. Now lay the image and validate it is right side up, and that the white border is not showing, put some heat tape to make sure it stays right where it’s at.

• The butcher paper is still in between the T-shirt; To prevent the image from re-sublimating on the back of the T-shirt through the holes. Keep in mind that this part is only for the glue because the sublimation part is done.

Finally; Place some butcher paper on the top of the T-shirt and press again for about 10 seconds. Don’t try to peel the fabric off to see if it worked; Wait until it cooled down a little bit. If you have any fabric excess you can cut them off.

Remember part of the artwork is you deciding where you want it to go!. The main objective is that this Peek a Boo sublimation shirt tutorial; Will serve as an inspiration for future projects!. If it works for you, share your comments below.