instant t-shirt design with laser printer

Make your special one-day t-shirt design and impress your friends, with an every-day-new t-shirt ;)

What U need:
- laser printer
- baking paper
- plain paper (on what u normally print)
- some kind of cutter
- double-faced scotch tape
- hard underlay (heat resistant)
- iron
- t-shirt

What U get:
- nice individual clothing

mostly after washing your cloth is just like before - without individual style
sometimes some black color will be left anyway
so, it's all on your own risk ;)

Deutsche Version (german version)

Step 1 Prepare the design

I only own a b/w laser printer, so my motive has to be b/w, too.
I think this should also work with a color laser printer (haven't tried).

So choose or create what you want to get on your clothes.
In case that it is a DIN A4 printer I fragmented my writing in order to get it bigger than A4.
For even bigger things, just use more sheets.
Do not just cut your image. The border-zones schould overlap a little bit, this will make it easier putting them together in the right way.
And don't forget to mirror it!

Comments

[pennyd]

I love this...if I could get it to work as well as the pictures. So here are some questions:
1. I am using parchment, is there a particular brand that works best? mine have all had about 1/2 the toner left on the parchment.
2.What about the temperature of the iron
3 it would be cool if you could trick the printer so it didn't heat the paper so you'd get a more pure print.

[haamaan]

Where can i get the baking paper?

[loricollins]

Is baking paper in the US parchment paper (in a roll) or perhaps waxed paper (in a roll). Thanks!

[KNT]

It would be a perfect method, but it's unusable witch black t-shirts :/ And so it's "only" great :)

[kiwisaft]

would be interesting how color prints come out on black t-shirts. color laser printer anyone?

[linam97]

i tried this a while back for a school project and yea color works. its sticks well. but it messed with my laserjet 1600. now all my pages are pink and it runs low. and USE double sided tape. regular tape melts and gets stuck.

[speedwell]

New T-shirts have a treatment on them that keeps them from getting wrinkled and dirty on the shelf. This treatment needs to be washed away. Pre-washing also pre-shrinks the shirt, which is important. Also, use ordinary 50/50 cotton/poly blend shirts for best results.

[Daddio_UK]

Cool, i like it, yet to try it though.. you can often get cheap colour laser printers from pc/harware reclaimation yards

[IAE]

when i do it it always comes out bad and faded!

REPLY!!!

[PaladinMark]

After a preliminarily pressing the iron flatly over the whole image (letters) at once, I found i needed to go over the whole thing applying pressure with the tip of the iron (the end of the flat bit only a square centimeter or so I guess, so more force was exerted over each bit) . Im guessing i could also improve the blackness of mine by printing twice on the baking paper, so that a thicker layer of toner is applied , though I have not tested that yet . God bless, Mark

[kiwisaft]

better don't try to print twice on one baking paper - i think this would end up in a tonerpowder everywhere in your printer effect ;) better print on two sheets and iron both on the shirt. works fine

[Astinsan]

What kind of printer... If your in windows you can set it to dark mode... most printers will default to econo mode. I know my OKI LED printer it doesn't work on at all.. but the HP I have it worked perfect... Gonna try color with a HP 4400 at a friends house..

[kiwisaft]

maybe bad printer ;) i only know it works on my printer

[PaladinMark]

This is a really good free way of printing your own t-shirts. Thanks Kiwisoft

[CaffeineHouse]

so... will wax paper work? most wax paper can stand up to quite a bit of heat. i want to know, but i don't want to kill my printer figuring it out.

[netmasta10bt]

If it's a simple logo, i'd print an image and make a template, Then spray paint it.

[jr rwigemera]

why laser printer @& not inkjet printer? please advise

[kiwisaft]

laser toner is plastic powder - perfect for ironing. you can't transfer ink by iron over it.

[CatSteaks]

This is a great idea... havn't tried it yet(goin' to the grocery store for supplies tomorrow)

The "washing out" issue, could that be solved by this? http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/3446-AA.shtml?lnav=transfers.html
(found here http://www.instructables.com/id/E7Y7MOQ9OSES9J79QF/)

[nice_iced]

A clear latex spray or scotch guard might work to keep it from fading. I've actually been wanting to do a little experiment by replacing the black powder toner of an old HP Laserjet 4000 with white powder coat paint. But I still use it and want to wait till I get a new one.

[kiwisaft]

no, i don't think this will fix it. this works for ink, but toner is plastic powder :/

[michou17103]

I did a couple of colour prints today. Samsung clp 550 and parchment paper. They printed great and tranfered ok. I could us an old scholl iron with some real heat and it might have done a better job. My second attempt was even better, I pre-ironed the area before appling. I still think a heat press would be the cats meow.

[kiwisaft]

got some pictures?

[hartl]

if you happen to have a xerox phaser solid ink printer around - try it with transparent paper. using photo print quality and white cotton gave good results. the solid ink (wax) has a lower melting point than laser printer dye (plastic dust) and penetrates the cotton fibers instead of sticking on them.

[freasafan13]

What's wrong, I just printed a "Lost" logo and it won't transfer. What do I do?

[somezack]

That won't work. The logo is copyrighted. :)

[freasafan13]

So if I used a bloody personal picture that would make the problem all better?

[somezack]

Maybe if you mailed a check to the Hanso Foundation?

[whoschuck]

can you wash this as usual then? or will all the ink bleed???

[pharoah]

Can you use wax paper for this instead?

[xrobevansx]

NO!!!!! The wax coating will kill your printer! DO NOT ATTEMPT!!

[paperseal]

just spend $25 on laser transfer paper for t-shirts, you'll fuck up your printer wicked bad

[kiwisaft]

I think so, if it's heat resistant enough. Just try ist -my first attempts were with some pages from magazines

[royalestel]

You can hand-wash the fabric and line dry to avoid toner smudges on other clothes, right? Favorite.

[kiwisaft]

it's the safest way, but i don't think that hand-wash will remove all the toner. I haven't had smudges on other clothes after washing - i don't use/have a dryer

[aych]

its okae.. but the carbon flakes off.. maybe my iron aint hot enough?.. cant even wear the tshirt for half a day!

[kiwisaft]

you have to iron it that way, that there are many many little cracks in the black area, so the flakes will be smaller - then maybe rub away the loose ones and iron a second layer over it in the same way. i ironed it hotter on jeans, now there are still black blotches after a few waschings :( so could be that if u iron it hot enough, it will stay forever :) looking forward to your color results

[aych]

my printer hp 1100 hated my parchment paper.. didn't stick at all.. i took it to my newer printer and it was ok. i used the vellum printer properties. i think it applied more heat to it.

[aych]

im gonna try the color prints soon. i'll let you guys know how it turns out. for anyone who had a hard time finding "baking sheets" we sell it as parchment paper up here in Canada.

[westfw]

Don't throw the resulting shirts in a clothes drier with anything you don't want to have toner smudges on :-(