Creating Designs For Your HTV Scraps

I've been experimenting with my iron-on vinyl scraps recently and I figured out how to piece various sections together to create multi-color designs, like this Fire Flower from Super Mario.
Read on to see how easy it is to do:

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Whenever I cut vinyl I tend to work in batches, preparing a whole bunch of shirts at once. I have a bin where I keep all of my htv and I try to use up colors that I already have as opposed to buying more for each project. I have become quite efficient at keeping my vinyl stash limited to one drawer ... I pretend to be smugly proud of that, but really it's how I keep myself in check from overbuying supplies 😂

I also have another small bin where I keep my scraps.

(You can click here to read more about my Cricut cart)

So anyway, I had my supplies out and my scraps spread all over the floor to see if anything could be used for the designs I was cutting. I had pretty much used up everything I could for the day when I got to thinking...why not create something for my scraps? Meaning, why not design the cutting around my scraps versus having a design and seeing if any of my scraps fit it, make sense?

(You can click here to read a post where I talk more about scraps)

I had been wanting to cut a Fire Flower for awhile and after looking at the scrap colors available, I decided to use up yellow, orange and green to make it happen.

I'll admit, it was a bit tricky. First you have to choose a design and send it to your cutting mat in Design Space. Once there you can look to see what parts of your design hit which measurements on the cutting mat, and fit your scraps accordingly. If it's easier to adjust your design's size so that certain parts hit certain measurements, go for it!

The best cutting tip I can give is to make sure that each scrap has perfectly straight lines with square angles. This allows you to butt the pieces together and prevents gaps in the design.

After you are done cutting, weed the pieces and set aside. When you set them down, have them flipped over and ready to go in their proper order, this makes transferring them to your fabric much easier. Another tip is to preheat your surface. Cricut recommends this anyway to prep the fabric and remove wrinkles. Another bonus is the heat helps to hold the scraps in place together as you get ready to press. After you have them in place, press according to the heat and time instructions for the brand of vinyl that you are using.

And there you go, a multi color Fire Flower!
If you look closely, you can see a bit of a gap between a couple of the green pieces. This happened during the pressing, you want to be very careful to lift you press directly up and down. Any moving of the press can shift the vinyl before it's fixed into place. I accidentally shifted a bit of my design, but overall I'm happy!

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I hope you liked this how-to post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

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