5 Essential Supplies for Heat Transfer Vinyl Crafting

Heat transfer vinyl (HTV) is a flexible and durable method for creating t-shirts and accessorizing other items, as long as the material is compatible with HTV. While this vinyl application method is effective enough for professional HTV businesses, you don’t need to feel intimidated if you’re looking to take up HTV as a crafting hobby or side-hustle. As long as you equip yourself with the right tools and supplies, you can quickly learn how to and succeed at applying HTV. Here are some of those essential supplies for heat transfer vinyl crafting and how to use them.

Heat Transfer Vinyl

The natural first step is choosing a heat transfer vinyl that you like. You can choose from different textures, colors, finishes, and more so your final product matches your crafting idea as closely as possible.

Shirts or Another Surface

Another essential supply for HTV crafting is the surface on which you’ll place your vinyl. Many people apply vinyl to t-shirts. It’s important, based on the type of vinyl you use, to pick a material that it can adhere to. PrimePick USA has blank shirts for vinyl that work well when bringing your eye-catching t-shirt designs to life. Based on the material you use and your own creativity, you can broaden out what items you create.

HTV Cutting Machine

It’s entirely possible to hand-cut your HTV products to produce your desired design. That said, if you’re crafting in any kind of volume, this is a relatively exhausting and difficult task to keep up. Cutting by hand risks a slight mistake ruining your work, whereas relying on an HTV cutting machine automates the process and takes the risk out of your hands. Speed up your production and stress less over your craft by investing an HTV cutting device.

Weeding Tools

Once you’ve cut your design in your vinyl, you need to take away the excess vinyl so you can press it onto your t-shirts or another medium. To do this, you’ll need a slim scalpel-looking tool called a weeding tool. Much like removing weeds from a garden to allow flowers to take center stage, a weeding tool removes unwanted vinyl so you can apply your design with maximum contrast, highlighting every detail.

Heat Source

Of course, you need some heat to affix your vinyl to your medium. You can use one of two things: a clothes iron or an HTV-specific heat press. A clothes iron is a riskier option because you often cannot evenly cover the entirety of your vinyl at once. A heat press, on the other hand, evenly heats the whole vinyl pattern to a specific pre-set temperature.