Hittin' the Road: Route 66 Tote Bag Tutorial

I may have mentioned 1 or 100 times that I am moving to Texas.

I am busy packing my house...but I am also busy planning road trip and diving into all things Texas. When I received the Heat Transfer Material from Silhouette I knew I wanted to make something that paid homage to my home state of California but also celebrate my new adventure in Texas. After perusing the Silhouette Store, I found these graphics for Texas  and California (for only 99cents!) and I knew what I was doing...

Travel Tote Bags that celebrate Route 66 and The Great American Road Trip!

   

I have used the Heat Transfer Material once before...a long long time ago, and I was so excited to give it another whirl. It was so much fun...I have so many more ideas...and BEST yet...I have a couple of super cool original totes!

Supplies

• Silhouette Heat Transfer, Smooth. I used Maroon and White
• Silhouette Portrait or Cameo
• Natural Tote Bag (I purchased a 3 pack in natural from a craft store)
• Desired Graphic I used these: Texas  and California 
• You also need an iron, ironing board, and a clean cloth 
• Tweezers (or a pin) and scissors may be help full

Make it!

• After selecting your design, open the design in the Silhouette Software.
• Size your design correctly
• Once you are happy with the size, you need to MIRROR Image the graphic/design BEFORE you cut.

• Adjust the rollers to the material/paper size
• Load the heat transfer paper into the Silhouette. You do NOT use a cutting mat. Load the material into the Silhouette with the shiny/plastic side down.
• Hit "Send to Silhouette" and select the Silhouette Heat Transfer in the drop down menu
• And...CUT!

• Once the design is cut, remove the material that you will NOT be using. The portion of the design you use, will remain adhered to the shiny plastic.
• I used  tweezers to remove the material from my smaller letters.

• Position your design on the tote bag, face down (the design/writing will look correct now, not mirrored)

• Heat the iron NO HOTTER than 300F
• NOTE: I had a bit of trouble with my iron an it would get too hot...so try a small test piece if you can with your iron.
• Place a cloth over the design and press, apply firm pressure to the design for 45-60 second per area until the design is transferred to the tote bag. 

• Remove the cloth and slowly peel off the plastic covering.
• (THE BOX OF HEAT TRANSFER PROVIDES GREAT DIRECTIONS!)

This post is written and created at 504 Main by Holly Lefevre   disclosure: affiliate links are included in this blog post