Introduction: DALL-E 2's AI Generated Art Tote Bag and Graphic Shirts

About: I work for at a university to create programs to engage with students, staff, and faculty with an emphasis on technology and accessibility with our makerspace

Using Open AI's DALL-E 2, we can create our own graphics with personalized prompts that can be heat pressed on to fabrics to make customizable bags and t-shirts.

With the advent of LLMs and generative AI being used by more and more people, there is much debate on its use at the university I work at, ranging from copyright and ethical issues, passing a MBA exam from Wharton, writing student recommendation letters, and if incoming Fall 2023 students will need to sign a scholastic integrity document regarding the use of AI.

I wanted to introduce its use to people in a less serious and fun but easily accessible way using Project Based Learning that allows people to be invested in making their personal project that they can use in their day to day lives. Also to have a bit of fun.

Supplies

Required materials:

  • Heat transfer paper, about USD 20-25 for twenty sheets
  • Crafting knife
  • Ruler
  • Ironing machine
  • Tote bag or t-shirt (any fabrics are fine as long as they can withstand the heat from the iron(ex. no polyester, I recommend cotton or canvas materials)

Not required but useful to have:

  • Teflon sheet (more reusable)
  • Paper cutter (faster and easier straight edges)

Step 1: Playing Mad Libs With AI

DALL-E 2 is the close cousin of ChatGPT that uses a text prompt to create images instead. It has no waitlist so can be used right now and comes initially with free credits and a limited monthly refill, with the choice to buy more credits (115 credits = $15), so people new to AI can still use it after a simple sign up on their internet browser.

Depending on the audience for the project, you can go into further detail on what other types of image generating programs exist (ex. Stable Diffusion), how they work (ex. what LLMs are, differences between GPT3 and GPT4, etc.), what kind of real world applications we hope to use it for (ex. x-ray diagnosis assistance), and the possible conflicts we face using it (ex. can AI generated products be submitted for contest or as homework?). However for this guide, I will omit those explanations and instead recommend highly instructional YouTube videos covering these various topics created by much smarter people than me.

What I will instead instruct is to play Mad Libs with it. Basically, by providing the program with many descriptors and details, the image generated can be more specific and accurate to what the user intends.

For example, if I wanted a image of a 'funny cat', I would first describe the color of the cat. In addition, I would add other objects or themes that I like for it, such as 'a spaceship' or 'in space'. Then I would put artistic descriptions like "in the style of a 10 year old drawing". The more adjectives, nouns, verbs, and descriptors you can add, the more DALL-E 2 can narrow down from its database to try and represent what image of a 'funny cat' I would like. Other examples of text formats I found useful are "Oil painting of", "in the style of Andy Warhol", "as a 3D render", "bright background with tacos". Feel free to use the internet and see how other people make descriptive text prompts.

Be as creative as you can and really have fun with creating the text prompt. Especially ask questions to the user like, "what is your favorite animal", "do you have a famous artist you like", or "what did you eat yesterday" to engage with them so they can think of a starting point and enjoy themselves.

There are additional features of DALL-E 2 you can explore as well such as making Variations or uploading your own image that can be edited, cropping out certain parts to keep, and more, so depending on how much time you have to study it and how much time you have to implement it, you can really have fun with it. I once asked students to bring in pictures of their pets and we had fun with making pictures of having our pets drink wine or playing board games.

Step 2: Save the Image and Print on Heat Transfer Paper

Once you decide on the image you like, you can print them out on the Heat Transfer Paper.

The one I used came from here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W97SRKH and it seems to work quite well while being affordable. There are different versions and companies that make it so just feel free to shop around from other sources or stores, but make sure the one you get is compatible with your printer. The one in the link allows both Laserjet and Inkjet printers to be used but some Heat Transfer Paper products may only prefer one or the other.

Inside the product are 20 sheets, instructions, and a non-stick cover that is used as a protective layer. You can follow the instructions of the product you get regarding the iron heat temperatures and time it takes to iron it on (I will elaborate for this one in the next step). Also be aware of the instructions on how to take care of it after as I believe most of them will ask you to air dry it instead of putting it in the dryer machine after washing.

Feel free to size up the generated graphic to your specifications, but for me I got some cheap canvas bags that seems to accommodate the whole image so I printed them out full size to fit and then cut out the white borders with a cutting tool.

After that, peel off the back layer and you will be left with just the graphic on a thinner and flexible sheet of transfer paper. Do not forget this step or you will need to re-print it and peel it off before heat pressing it on.

Step 3: Iron Onto the Fabric

Center your transfer sheet on to your fabric (whether it be a tote bag, shirt, hoodie, etc) and cover completely with the teflon layer while making sure there are no folds nor wrinkles on either the fabric or transfer sheet. The teflon layer acts as a protective layer allows it to be indirectly heated and prevent sticking to the iron. In my experience, the included teflon works fine but seems to get dirty after a handful of uses and may leave residue, so I got myself some higher grade teflon sheets as I would be making several dozens more with students.

Apply your hot iron on the correct setting (mine was the 'cotton' setting which was the second highest heat selection) and press into the teflon slowly but deliberately as if you have a job interview tomorrow and need a pressed shirt. Take your time with it on every part of the graphic underneath, averaging around 30 to 45 seconds for the process, and make sure you get all the edges especially.

After heating, wait a minute so it cools down again and the teflon sheet can be removed. Afterwards, rejoice in the power of AI and enjoy your new project.

Step 4: Enjoy

Use it for kids parties or sleepovers when its raining outside, to make swag for local sports teams, spice up your grocery bags and get compliments from the cashiers, use it to up-cycle old t-shirts during Earth week on campus, and more. The applications on various mediums of fabric are practically endless and the designs are indeed theoretically endless. AI is a very active and evolving field that will require more attention but for now, have a bit of fun.