With iron-on transfer paper, your members can iron their favorite Packetville characters onto t-shirts, other pieces of cotton clothing (even socks), or cloth. This is a great way to create shirts for club members without having the cost of printing up professionally especially if you only have a few members. With inexpensive muslin you can also make large banners with transfers of photos or other graphics. You could even cover a scrapbook where you can keep pictures of club events and other memorabilia.

Here's how to do it:

Have your students select an image or several images from the Character area of Packetville. In the Character section, they'll find both small and large images.

By copying their selection(s) into a photo-editing program such as Adobe's PhotoShop Elements®, they can create designs they like. They might want to use one character or perhaps create a collage of the characters. Some may want to simply use the name of their club on their design. (See instructions below for how to reverse the writing for the transfer process.)

If you don't have a photo-editing program, the images can be inserted into a paint program such as Kid Pix ® or a word processing program such as Microsoft Word® or AppleWorks®. They won't have as much flexibility in design with word processing programs, but these programs work well if all you are doing is using the graphics from Packetville and resizing them slightly.

Instruct your members to pay attention to the size of their design, making sure it will fit on, for example, the t-shirt or scarf they have in mind.

If there are words in their design, make sure they check the spelling with you before printing. They will also need to reverse the writing (flip, mirror or rotate image) in the word processor or art/photo editing program they are using or the words will come out backwards when they are ironed on. Check out the help section of the software application you are using to see how to do this. In Microsoft Word ® you can do this by putting the text into the Word Art or drawing feature and using the Rotate/Flip option.

When they think their design is complete, they should print it on regular paper and then examine the printout closely to see if it is what they want. If not, they'll need to try again on regular paper, for you won't want them to waste the more expensive transfer paper.

Make sure you also know which side of the paper your printer prints on so members print on the right side of the iron-on transfer. If you don’t know, do a test run. Write “Print Side? on a piece of paper, type a few letters in your word processor or art/photo editing program, and print it out to see which side the computer prints on. Adjust how you put the iron-on transfer paper in the printer according to you test.

Be sure they follow the printing directions on the transfer package both for printing and transferring to their clothing. For best results, try out a few designs on an old t-shirt or piece of cotton cloth before trying to make your first piece. There is a little bit of an art to making iron-on transfers, but you’ll figure it out quickly if you plan to make a couple of samples first. Using a piece of cardboard under the area you are ironing can also help you get clean and crisp transfers of member's designs.

IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE: You'll need to decide if you or they will do the ironing on of the transfers. If your members are doing the transferring, make sure they use the iron only under your careful supervision. They'll need to know your safety rules before they begin.

Back to Top