You guys, I’ve been trying for a WHILE to put designs on hats. Every now and then I pull it off. But more often than not, I end up wasting hats and time. I usually end up with a crease that makes the cap look bad 🙄
In the past I bought patches to sublimate onto to then put on the hat, hoping that was the answer. It wasn’t, not like I’d hoped.
But today was different!
I spent the weekend looking up tutorials on making my own patches and applying those to hats and it worked!
In the summer, we try to take the kids on a trip. It usually involves a family reunion, then some time for our immediate family to explore. I like decorating bags for the kids to take to keep their things in. And sometimes I go a little crazy…like this year.
This year there are water bottles, shirts, drawstring backpack tags, backpacks, and, you guessed it, hats.
I didn’t have really high expectations for these caps because of past experience. But boy howdy! I didn’t mess up ANY of them. Not even the practice one lol.
And since I’m super excited that I finally did something that worked like it was supposed to, I’m sharing it lol
So, here you go. Custom hat patches onto a variety of colors of baseball cap and even a bucket hat.
First, I LOVE the way these colors came out. It was a gorgeous image and seemed to be just right for this project.
But, there are definitely flaws and mistakes while I figure stuff like this out lol
But, see the first 😉
❤️❤️❤️
I think these are great spring/summer/fall/garden fun. They’re mesmerizing and hypnotic. A great way to relax. I can’t wait to hang mine and see how my little guys react. Hoping this a great way for them to calm outside when they need to ❤️
I’m doing wind spinners for a $20 donation to Paws 4 Autism. Again, it’s things like this that help us raise money for our service dog and the other pups in the program to help keep it going. This is a 10 inch spinner, but I might be switching to 8 in spinners so I don’t have to piece papers together lol
If you’re interested in a wind spinner, please message me and we’ll make it happen 😀
In my catch up blog, I said I would post some of the projects I’ve been working on when I have a few spare minutes.
So, today, I’m posting the mugs I’ve been working on. These are the types of things I do as fundraisers for Paws 4 Autism and Bandit
To do these, I started learning how to sublimate. I looked easy, and theoretically it is. But it’s the small stuff that trips me up lol
This is a fun idea. I took a child’s artwork and put it on a shirt for him and a mug for his mom. It’s like fridge art – but better!
I’m also able to put pictures of cuties like this onto mugs. This particular grandma needed a mug with her granddaughter on it. It was so much fun to do ❤️ Can you imagine waking up to this smile in the mornings?
For Halloween, I had a BLAST making color changing mugs. We call them magic mugs. I need to figure out how to post a video here, but for now, trust me, they’re cool. They start out black. When you add hot water, the black disappears revealing and image under it.
And before we knew it, it was Christmas time. I did a Naughty/Nice Magic mug (because I LOVE them lol) and also did a set of matching mugs and kitchen towel set.
And then, I saw a pattern that I really liked, but couldn’t find, so I got to design some things using just a few images and tricks to recreate and refine the look I’d seen. I also did a matching tumbler 😊 I think this would be fun for Mother’s Day ❤️
This last set of mugs I did because I found images I fell in love with. A friend suggested they might work well as Magic Mugs. And I agree!
I did the Sagittarius mug for me (and I just noticed I misspelled it, so I will be fixing that right away!)
The Aries mug is for a friend of mine and I LOVE how the colors came out on this 💕
So those are some of the mugs I’ve been working on. There are some missing so there will be a Mug post part 2 coming soon.
As I mentioned at the beginning, these are the types of things I’ve been doing for fundraisers for Bandit and Paws 4 Autism.
For more information about Paws 4 Autism, click here: AWESOME DOGS
But there is value in making mistakes, if we’re willing to learn from them.
I was playing with an idea to sublimate Bandit’s name onto a few things. I’m trying to put together an emergency bag for him that’s ready to go, including first aid items. We live in Tornado Land and it is that time of year. But we’ve also had ice storms in the winter that knock out power for four days. Gas leaks. People sitting in front of our house watching it…and more, I’m sure, because my life is NOT boring lol.
I found these bags at a good price, so it was worth experimenting with, especially because this one would stay in the basement unless we needed it. And if we need it, it will have character 🙂
Here’s what I learned:
Nylon straps melt at high temps. I’m sure I would have remembered if I’d taken time to think about it. In the future, I’ll just cut off this particular strap. I’ll get a better image that way, too. But I do have to clean the melted nylon glob off my heat press. Luckily, I have a teflon sheet attached to it. If I can’t clean it off, I can replace it. You can see some of the melted strap I’ve already scraped off on the silicone mat.
2. I learned that not only does the nylon strap melt, it impedes the transfer of the image. You can see that on the right hand side of the picture. In this set up, there was no way to move it far enough out of the way for a good transfer. But then again, it also wouldn’t have mattered since the strap melted. On the other hand, I also learned that I CAN sublimate on these bags, and the temp and time seem to work.
3. I also learned that the melted strap I hadn’t gotten off the teflon, was over further than I thought…Maybe I should have tried harder to clean it off, but I thought I had enough room to do the last transfer. I should have paid more attention to exactly where the glob would land. Because some of it got on to the other piece I was sublimating lol. You can see where it transferred on the bottom left. But again, this is an emergency bag, so this gives it character 😉 And I now have a matched set 😀
In addition, the transfer on the bottom left is a little light. So I learned I need to move the image up just a little more to stop the seam from interfering.
4. I learned that the top inside of this bag…melts a little 🙄
When sublimating, it’s usually wise to use some blow out paper on top of the image and under the substrate you’re sublimating on to, to catch any of the ink that could transfer to somewhere you don’t want it to go. The white part inside the zippered pouch…that’s the blowout paper. It’s stuck to the top of the bag now because the material above it melted a little. You can also see the blue tape I used to keep the blow out paper in place…it may also be a permanent part of the bag now lol. But now I know.
I learned I was right to use another teflon sheet inside that zippered pouch. It was placed after the blow out paper, because I wasn’t sure about the material there and how it would react to heat. If it *did* melt a little, I didn’t want it sealing off this pocket and limiting the options I have for this bag.
I learned a lot. Not everything I did was a failure, I saved some of the project by making smart decisions. But other parts, I really messed up on, and learned from them. Knowing what NOT to do can be as important as knowing WHAT to do.
I have another bag like this. It’s for use in the car or for traveling so the labeling will be similar, but a little different. Now, I can take my mistakes and the knowledge they created, and apply it to this other bag 😀
Thanks for stopping by! Bandit and JJ appreciate everyone’s support on this journey ❤️
To find out more about our organization, you can visit us and check out the pups in our program here: Paws 4 Autism
To find out more about JJ and Bandit, you can find their page here: JJ’s Magic
ajdurrant 