craftgrrl | picture transfering methods

i just wanted to share some things i learnt in class last year, and suggest some things that maybe some people have'nt heard of yet.

1) if you want to glue a magazine image, or even something you've printed off your computer, you can grab the image and cover it with a clear acrylic glue. make sure you cover it evenly in a nice layer. wait for it to dry, and then put it in a cup of water. let it soak for at least 15 mins, then take it out. gently roll the paper off of the gel with your fingers. be very very gentle. once the paper is off, the colour or image will stay onto the gel. it will be a little bit transparent but it won't lose very much colour or detail.

now you can do tons with the picture. glue it onto things, sculptures, put some butterflies on your window, you can even make a flower bottle out of a tall juice bottle with nice images decorating it.

for t-shirts
2) iron-on transfers. not everyone has a printer that can take them, so some copy shops will do it for you in their machines. then you just iron on the image. (this one is well known)

3) fabric crayons. you can draw on wax paper and iron-on the image, just make sure you do it backwards.

4) diy silk-screening. i posted instructions along time ago, so i'll just sum it up quickly because i'm lazy.
- get a wood frame or use embroidery hoops
- draw an image on screen material from old curtains (go to a second hand store and find a thing, fine tiny screen-like material that doesn't let too much paint through)
- fill in all the parts that aren't part of the image with water-proof glue, or duct tape for large areas, whatever works
- center the image, and swipe paint over the image onto the shirt with a flat card.

(you can get special paint, or something you can add to regular acrylics to make it stay on fabric)

stencils
5) you can use hard paper, cardboard, and i even use those overhead sheets for printers and presentations. they work well. i've used bristol board cut outs and acrylic craft spray paint on shirts and it has stayed on well. it's a bit thicker than the regular stuff.

6) stamps. you can make stamps out of anything. linoleum, rubber (the cheapest and craft stores), erasers, vegetables, whatever. it's vrey easy to draw on these materials in pen, and then cut out what you don't want on the stamp. do this backwards as well. there's a carving tool that's about $6.00 that comes with different tops to cut out of rubber and lino to make stamps and such.

7) if you aren't great at drawing like myself, you can print a picture on a clear overhead sheet and project it on to a canvas to trace and paint. you can also paint some flowers, stars, etc onto your walls for decoration.

for scrap books
8) if you see something in a newspaper you like, you can grab some wax paper and rub the i mage onto the paper. then you can rub it off onto your paper. this will make the picture faint, depending on how inky the newspaper is.

9) tracing paper is great, but a bit pricey. you can use any crappy thin paper for this and just trace and image, turn that sheet over onto another place, and with thick lines with pencil you press and draw over where the lines are to lightly transfer it on to another sheet.

all of these are really helpful because i am messy, and these methods make it easy to get the picture you want for any project. now that you know about these, you can make your own t-shirts instead of buying iver-priced junk!

does anyone know about photo emulsion (sp?) paper? i want to try it.