Silhouette Heat Transfer Vinyl Tips for Beginners

Whether you're new to Silhouette CAMEO or just a heat transfer vinyl beginner, I have some tips and tricks for you to get started on your first HTV project!

Heat transfer vinyl is a special type of vinyl that can be cut on the Silhouette cutting machines which can then be applied to fabric be it clothing, pillow covers, bags, etc with heat and pressure. Youc an use a heat press or an iron - although a heat press is highly recommended if you're doing a lot of HTV projects or selling at all!

Silhouette Heat Transfer Vinyl Tips for Beginners

I suggest keeping your first heat transfer project a simple one, by working with something easy like a t-shirt that has a big open area and is easy to iron or heat press.  You may also want to test out HTV vinyl on an inexpensive piece first until you get the hang of it.  I got this shirt at the craft store for just $1.

Heat Transfer Vinyl Basics for Beginners

You can buy sheets of heat transfer vinyl at places like Swing Design, Amazon, or Expressions Vinyl. I would recommend using a quality HTV like Siser Easyweed or Chemica brand.  These are the best heat transfer vinyl brands for quality and they cut very easily and consistently on Silhouette CAMEO and Portrait.

If you start by cutting a smooth HTV like Easyweed - which comes in a lot of colors -you'll learn the basics and feel more confident when you start experimenting with glitter heat transfer vinyl, stretch HTV, flock, and layering heat transfer vinyl for multi-color designs!

Most heat transfer vinyl - with the exception of some patterned HTV - comes on a clear carrier sheets. The HTV must be cut (in reverse) and weeded while still on the carrier sheet. The clear carrier sheet will be removed after the HTV is pressed onto the surface of the shirt.

 Silhouette CAMEO and Heat Transfer Vinyl Supplies and Tools

Gather all your supplies before you get started. Here's what you'll need:

• Heat Transfer Vinyl
• T-Shirt or other fabric where you want to place the heat transfer
• Hot Iron or Heat Press
• Thin cotton fabric like a handkerchief or sheet or a Teflon Sheet
• Vinyl weeding tool such as a hook
• Silhouette cutting mat

Heat Transfer Vinyl Designs:  How to Set Up for HTV in Silhouette Studio

This is a Silhouette Studio V4 tutorial for HTV

Open up the Silhouette Studio software.  I made a t-shirt for my daughter using a design that I had purchased in the Silhouette Design Store. (I will share some tips on using two colors of heat transfer vinyl in a follow up post, but for now let's just work with one.)

Any designs purchased from in the Silhouette Store will be saved in your Silhouette Cloud folder in the Silhouette Studio Library. To access these designs, open your library and scroll down to your Cloud folder. If you do not have a cloud folder, you'll need to set up the Silhouette Cloud to access all Silhouette Design Store designs.

Find your design in your library and double click it to open the design in the work space.

Once it's in the work area, click the Page Setup tab make sure the page size is "Automatic - CAMEO" (or Automatic - Portrait). Further down the window pick "CAMEO 12x12" for the cutting mat size.




If your design is grouped together and you need to re-arrange it you will need to select the design > right click > ungroup.  Ungrouping a design in Silhouette Studio will put individual selection or bounding boxes around the shapes making up the larger design.

If your design needs to be sized, size all pieces at the same time by selecting all shapes then pulling the corner nodule.

The most important thing to keep in mind when cutting Silhouette heat transfer vinyl projects is that the design needs to be mirrored before cutting.  HTV needs to be cut in reverse so that when it's flipped onto the shirt and applied it's correctly oriented.  To mirror or flip a design in Silhouette Studio, select the design > right click > Flip Horizontally. 

Now you're ready to cut.

Go to the Send panel at the top right of Silhouette Studio.  In the Material menu select Heat Transfer Vinyl, Smooth from the list of materials. This will then display the recommended cut settings along the bottom of Silhouette Studio.

Make sure you have bold red cut lines around your design which will appear when "Cut" is selected. The tool should either be the Autoblade (default for the Silhouette CAMEO 3) or the Ratchet Blade.

If you are using the ratchet blade you will need to manually adjust the blade depth on the blade by using the built in ratchet on the front of the machine to change the blade depth.

Place the HTV onto the Silhouette cutting mat with with the shiny side (carrier sheet) of the HTV down. This will put the adhesive side or the back side of the HTV up - which is why you are cutting in reverse.

Place the top edge of the cutting mat gently against the rollers and then left edge lined up with the line and arrows on the left side of the machine. Hold it in place with one hand while clicking "Load" or "Load Mat" on the touch screen.



This will pull the mat and HTV under the rollers and into the correct starting position. 



Go back into Silhouette Studio and from the Send panel click "Send" .

When the design is finished cutting, unload it from the machine and weed it. Before sure to leave the actual heat transfer vinyl design ON THE CLEAR BACKING!!!  

Here's where the magic happens. Lay your shirt out flat on your ironing board and have your iron really hot.  Position your design exactly as you want it to look.  Be sure the clear plastic backing is up and the vinyl is touching the shirt or whatever you're transferring the design to.  If you have text, it's easy to see now why you needed to mirror the image before you cut.

Take your extra piece of material - the sheet, handkerchief, or teflon sheet - and lay it down on top of the htv backing.  Now press your iron (or heat press) down on top with a lot of pressure for about 45-60 seconds.

If you're using a heat press the recommended time and temperature for Siser Easyweed is 305 degrees for 20 seconds. Flip the shirt inside out and press again from the back side of the HTV for another 20 seconds. This draws the HTV vinyl further into the shirt to make sure it doesn't peel.

Remove the iron and the extra fabric and slowly peel up a small area of the clear backing.  If the vinyl does not stay on the shirt, lay it all back down and add more heat and pressure from the iron. If the heat transfer vinyl does stick, and it should, slowly peel away the backing.

Wondering how to cut a multi-color HTV design with Silhouette CAMEO? Check out this tutorial on how to layer heat transfer vinyl.