Printing on Fabric at Home

I love printing on fabric from home to get custom pieces and it’s so easy to do. There are a few different ways to print on fabric at home depending on your project.

There are a number of store-bought paper backed fabric sheets options. However, these can get really pricey. Here are a few examples:

Jacquard Ink Jet Fabric 8.5'' x 11'' Cotton Sheets (10 Pack)- $9.60 on Amazon.com

Avery Printable Iron-On Fabric for Inkjet Printers, 8.5 x 11 Inches, Pack of 5- $7.99 on Amazon

Here the iron-on version was used on a onesie to mark each month for my niece, Emma’s, first year. A very cute idea and easy to print at home but they do get expensive.

Awwwww 

One DIY tutorial I found had me spraying cardstock with spray glue, adhering it to the fabric and cutting it to size.  This fed through the printer just fine but after removing the cardstock, the back of the fabric was left a gross, sticky mess. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS METHOD.

Here is a much cheaper (and far less sticky) DIY version using…

Freezer Paper! 
You can find it at any craft store, in some supermarkets and anywhere online. 

Reynolds Freezer Paper, 75 square feet- $4.64 on Amazon

How to:

Press and starch the fabric you want to print on and iron on a piece of freezer paper, larger than 8.5x11”, shiny side against the back of the fabric. Cut it to size (8.5x11”) to fit in your printer. Make sure to snip off any loose threads.

Any lingering fray will get caught in the printer. It’ll separate fabric and freezer paper and the ink will smudge and make a big mess.

If you are not sure how your paper will feed through, use a piece of regular paper and draw an arrow on it. Remember how you place the arrow in the printer and it’ll tell you how the paper feeds through. For my printer, the fabric needs to be paper side up (fabric side down), top of the fabric in first (if the fabric is directional).  If your printer feeds from the back, you’ll want it fabric up, top of the fabric leading into the printer first.

  

Unlike me, make sure your printer has sufficient ink before starting. 

 #blondemoment

After the fabric comes out of the printer, press it with a dry, hot iron to set the ink. Empty out the water/steam reservoir if need be to make sure it’s DRY. After pressing, simply peel off the freezer paper and use the fabric for your project. 

The freezer paper can then be ironed onto different fabric for another go through the printer. You can reuse the same piece of freezer paper up to 5 times, or so.

Another tutorial I found suggested doing a white vinegar rinse to the fabric set the ink. I didn’t find that this helped, but it didn’t hurt either. So go ahead and make your fabric smell like feet, if you’re so inclined.

What to Print:

You can print anything you’d like on your fabric: names, labels, favorite quotes, pictures, clip art. I use Microsoft Word to create what I want because I’m the most comfortable with that. You can use whatever program works for you. I’ve printed my “alice’s youngest” label, smart-ass sayings, song lyrics, TV and movie quotes, etc.

Some fun examples to re-design and use:

Printing Pictures: When printing photographs (especially of people), use an off-white or cream color for the background fabric. White tends to make the people in the photo look washed out and weird. 

Fabrics to use:

solid white

(These looks blue because of the lighting but they’re white.)

solid colors

large patterns with lots of negative space like this lovely pattern found on Amy Butler’s website 

or this pretty butterfly repeat found on Mood.com (yes, Project Runway lovers, THAT Mood)

 

Or this one from Spoonflower.com

small subtle patterns work well, especially with bold text

This is an adorable black and white princess fabric from Michael Miller that was colored in and made into a dress. 

Ridiculously cute!! And it inspired me to do something similar. I printed this black and white house for my 4 year old to color in. I found this clip art house on Google Images and printed it on white fabric.

Tom used ultra-fine tip Sharpies to color this in.

Very proud of himself.

He LOVED doing this so much, he won’t let me cut it up and make anything out of it.

When Your Project is Bigger Than Your Home Printer:

When you need a custom pattern bigger than an 8.5x11”sheet that you can’t print at home, I recommend using Spoonflower.com. Once you create a free account, you can upload your own designs and pictures or use their design/editing program at picmonkey.com.  Both are very easy to use. They’ll print your fabric and ship it to you through USPS.

 

This fabric can get pretty expensive but when you order your own designs, you get a 10% “designer discount”and they have a large range of fabric choices to choose from.

I’ve ordered the basic combed cotton and the Kona Cotton. I really want to use make something with the Minky.

You can order by swatch, fat quarter, or 1+ yards. 

Here are some of my designs. I used picmonkey.com to create custom fabrics for each of my sons using their names and nicknames in a repeating pattern. I’ve used this fabric for quilt backings, pillowcases, Christmas stockings and in quilt blocks.

These are fabric books I designed using Microsoft Word and uploaded to Spoonflower. They are fat quarter size so I get 4 books to each yard and they make cute mini fabric books for baby showers. 

 

Spoonflower.com is a great alternative to printing at home when you need larger pieces for bigger projects. 

Have fun printing on fabric! Post any projects you've made with these methods!

***I have no affiliation with any of the companies mentioned.***