John's Area Of Interest

My main area of interest is in sublimation and infusable inks, on all sorts of items, Heat transfer Vinyl, mainly on T shirts, and also for the future (not yet operational) screen printing.

Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV)

After I bought a Cricut maker cutting machine, and used it for temporary vinyl cutting for designs, i started to get really interested in the application of Heat Transfer Vinyl. This was great for t shirts, and I soon (through trial and error) began getting more familiar with the process. The vinyl design is cut out by the cricut machine, then the image needs to be weeded. A heat press is used, and the vinyl pressed onto the t shirt. There are many types of vinyl out there, so I needed to find a brand that was of good quality, and adhered well to the material. I found that Siser was that brand, which I use for all of the garments now. The vinyl comes in many colours, and thicknesses, from the really thin Easyweed, to more thicker vinyl such as strip flock pro.

I now put into practice all I know to create band T shirts, but can also create personalised ones too. Or as above, as needed, (using Siser Easyweed) a simplified t shirt for work.

Sublimation

I was really interested in creating colourful images, and photos, onto coasters and mugs, among other things, and began to research into this, starting with mugs. I soon came up with sublimation; With sublimated inks on mugs, photos and text are placed on the item...the inks when heated turn from a solid to a gas (it's usually a solid to a liquid, and then a gas) and therefore, adhere to the specially coated mug. This results in permanent, seamlessly smooth transfers. But the inks only work on specially coated items.

So I started with mugs, and progressed to coasters, t shirts (although there are drawbacks, and only certain t shirts can be used for this process), coasters, can coozies, keyrings, mousemats and am thinking of widening this to more items.

I have used sublimation for band merchandise, but it can be used for personalised photos and images just as well.

Infusible Inks

Infusible inks are slightly different to Sublimation inks, in that there are many forms of infusable patterns and effects out there, but it can't replicate photos or images at all.. But for a different great effect i like to use infusable inks, as seen in the photo...which was commissioned by a cat lover.

Future Project

Screen Printing

I have bought a very basic Screen Printer, 1 Color 1 Station Silk Screen Printing Kit.. I havn't had much of a chance to perfect this yet, but hopefully this will be an added feature in the future, here at Burning Innovations, mainly for T shirts.