Sublimation set up and a project!

By now, you’ve all probably Googled rather than wait for this amateur hour!

Sublimation is a fancier iron-on technique that will allow you to use full color, detailed images, without the “filmy” feel you’d get from printable iron on paper. The ink infuses into the material you are transferring it to. You can transfer to more than just fabric too.

Below I’ve shared my set up and a little project using Gina Miller’s Strawberry Lemonade from the July BYOC. It is a little bit of an investment. (The printer, not the kit!) but if you’re into making your own home decor, tee shirts, handmade gifts, it’s definitely worth it!

The Equipment

1. A refillable ink tank printer
2. Sublimation ink
3. Sublimation paper
4. A heat press or “flat” iron without steam/holes. (Like a Cricut Easy Press)
5. Heat resistant tape
6. Butcher paper

Why do you need a special printer, ink, and paper?

The ink is specially formulated to be heat activated and permanent. The paper is created in a way that it will “release” the ink when heated. You will fill the printer with the special sublimation ink instead of the ink that it comes with. Once you load the special ink into the printer, that printer can only be used for sublimation. That’s a downside to it. You wont be able to print a regular photo. The image will look faded unless it’s heated.

What I Use (After watching a gazillion videos and visiting a bazillion websites)

1. Epson Eco-Tank ET-2760 (I got mine from Costco for about $230)
2. Cosmos Sublimation Ink (Full set, $40 online only)
3. Crafting Besties (100 letter size sheets, $24 online only)
4. Cricut Easy Press (just the 12 inch one)

I can’t tell you if these are the best. These are what I chose based on the videos I watched when I was looking into it all. These are the only products I’ve tried so far. They perform as expected. Once you load the ink you’re pretty much committed to it because you’ll want to refill with the same formula ink. I don’t know if it is a good idea to mix different formulas. The small business that makes the ink recommends the paper. The small business that makes the paper, recommends the ink. AND the ink company will send you the color profile and recommended settings if you want to get super geeky.

Blah blah blah

There are definitely more options out there, just look for sublimation ink and sublimation paper. The printer must be a refillable tank style. BUT one plus to the Cosmos ink is that it comes in a bottle that is already compatible with certain Epson Eco Tank printers, therefore, you do not have to get involved with syringes and all that. It just magically flows into the tanks. AND they have all the tutorials you need to get fully set up.

Blanks

It’s recommended that the item you are transferring to be made of Polyester or have some type of poly coating. I don’t remember why. I know that the color isn’t true otherwise. There are online stores that sell blanks for sublimation that should already be compatible. Keep in mind that anything that isn’t flat can be tricky.


Today’s project!

I felt like I needed to make a simpler project than the gnome to share with this post. There were a couple of elements in Gina Miller’s Strawberry Lemonade from this month’s BYOC that I thought would look really cute on a kitchen towel. Of course, I didn’t have any kitchen towels onhand so I just made one. LOL.


First, I put the images together in Photoshop.



Then I flipped the image and printed it on sublimation paper using my Epson Eco-Tank ET-2760 that I converted to print with sublimation ink.

The image on the right is with the sublimation ink/paper/printer and the one on the left is regular ink/paper/printer. See how the sub one is muted?




Then I made a towel using this poly cotton blend from Walmart. (I didn’t have a pattern. I just measured a towel I had and winged it.) 2 YARD? They had one job...




I cut the image down so it would fit flat on the material.




Taped it down using heat resistant tape so it doesn’t budge and blur the transfer. (Sunburst vibes optional)




I covered with butcher paper to protect the fabric from scorching because I used the highest setting on my Cricut easy press which I think is something like 365 degrees. I pressed down really flipping hard with all my might. (This is where a real heat press would be cooler). I pressed this project for about 3 minutes. I believe if I had a hotter iron and mechanical pressure it wouldn’t need to be as long. In my experience, with the tools I have, I need a long press.










Once you’re set up, it’s super easy to do!

Hope this inspires you. Sorry about the really bad photography.

 

Thank you!

Unfortunately, no. Once you load the sublimation ink into the printer, that's it. It will be dedicated only to sublimation. The ink is heat activated so it will not be true color until it's heated and transferred.

With that said, if you want to print a shopping list or something, and you have loaded regular paper into the printer, the ink will print on regular paper. It's just muted. But a photo wont be true color. Hope that makes sense!

If you someday change your mind and want to convert back to a regular printer, its possible, but it is a process. You have to run out all of the sublimation ink first and then load the regular ink and then print a bunch of times until the sub ink has fully flushed out. I guess the trickiest part of that would be getting all the colors to run out together because you can't really print if one color is empty. So it is possible. You may have to load regular ink in one of the colors while you continue to run the other colors out. Then once your last color has been replaced, you know your fully flushed.