How to transfer a photo to.. anything, for pretty much nothing

On December 5th, 2012 Joe and I discovered that we are expecting our second bundle of joy. I broke the news to him in a mostly lame way: picture message of the positive test while he was at work. I know, I know! Complete lack of creativity. Lets face it, I was exhausted, he was working late, and I knew he would want to know right away.

We've decided to let Logan break the news to our relatives at our various Christmas gatherings, I am pretty excited about our creative pregnancy announcement. Logan, being only 17 months old, doesn't have much of a vocabulary. How will he tell everyone the big news? He'll be sporting a custom red turtle neck that proclaims "I'm going to be a big brother! August of 2013" Joe and I aren't going to say a word. We're just going to wait until someone realizes what his shirt says and let the excitement spread.

Of course, you will be reading this after the fact. We don't want to ruin the surprise for anyone :)

There are plenty of places where you can get a shirt printed, but I like to do things as economically as I can. Here's how I customized Logan's shirt, the picture transfer method I use for my shirt template can be used for about nine-trillion projects.

What you'll need:

Freezer paper 

Copy paper (or construction paper)

Spray adhesive (or other adhesive)

Ink jet printer

Scissors

Step 1: Cut a piece of freezer paper to measure 8.5 x 11, exactly the same size as your usual copier paper.

 Step 2: Use an adhesive to attach the copier paper and freezer paper back to back. Make sure the waxy side of the freezer paper is facing out. I really only used colored construction paper so that you could see what I was doing better in the picture here. ** If you don't have spray adhesive handy I'm sure mod podge or a glue stick would do the trick.

 Step 3: Print your picture onto the waxy surface of the freezer paper. You may want to run a test page first to make sure you're putting your freezer paper through the printer right side up. Also, especially if your transferring text, make sure your printing a mirror image. You can see in my Word doc below that I did a vertical flip with the WordArt.

Also notice how the ink is pooled on the waxy surface of the paper. The wax coating prevents the ink from being absorbed into the paper and allows the transfer. This also makes is extremely easy to smudge! Be careful not to smear the ink. Because of the way the ink pools on top of the wax I'm not sure this would be a good method for transferring complex detailed pictures. 

Step 4: Before the ink dries, press the picture against the surface you want to transfer it to. Press and rub in a circular motion for a minute or two making sure to have pressed the entire span of the picture against the item you're transferring it to. Be very careful that the paper doesn't move while you're doing this or else your picture will smear.

Step 5: Remove the transfer paper and marvel at your good work 

This is a pretty much horrible picture. Sorry bout that.

The ink doesn't stand out much on this well worn in cotton fabric. It would also fade so fast it would be gone in two washes. So in this project I was just transferring the picture as a template for my fabric paint.

I think the finished project shouts the good news loud and clear :)

Wipe off your transfer paper to re-use it for future projects!

Maybe you want to transfer text to a wall to create a look similar to this vinyl wall art that you can purchase on Etsy.

Or you could transfer a picture/text to canvas or painted wood to create your own wall art.

I feel like the possibilities are endless!



I hope you found this helpful! If you you have tips, tricks, or if your going to use this transfer paper in a project of you own please let us know!

And thanks for reading :)