I have a new sublimation printer and can now print and create ANYTHING I want for shirts or anything I can sublimate on. Including pictures of Cordelia! And put them on anything! No more buying Infusible Ink sheets that aren’t exactly what I want for a lot of money.
Using the two previous posts, you can put these sublimations on any fabric and are not limited to polyester. Or if you prefer solid objects, you can sublimate on any hard surface, including wood, ceramic or metal.
My New Sublimation Printer
I bought an ecoTank 2720 at Walmart where it was only $199! I found a sign at another Walmart that listed them at $139 but they had none left. They are at Amazon for $299.
And I got the Printer Jack ink because a friend recommended it at Amazon for $26. So for under $230 I was ready to go.
And it is also a scanner/copier. So even if you just have a regular picture, you can copy or scan it and print it out. The scanner will also save it to your computer so if you don’t have a scanner this one does that too.
To load the ink, you use needles that come in the package. BE CAREFUL! THEY ARE SHARP! I stuck one through my finger and have one heck of a bruise. It freaked out Cordelia because I am on blood thinners and it blead like crazy. I don’t know how long the ink will last but I printed for about three hours on highest quality and the levels barely changed.
Print your images on highest quality so that you don’t get lines.
Where I Got The Art From
Now technically any picture you can print can be printed on the sublimation printer. Hence me printing a picture of Cordelia and putting it on a t-shirt. But where do you get the backgrounds or pictures DESIGNED for sublimation? Well I found an absolute treasure trove of them at Creative Fabrica! That is why I can’t share any of them with you here. I don’t own the rights. But you can get them individually at Creative Fabrica.
Or a better idea would be to buy a membership. I got mine about 3 years ago for about $9 per month. It has gone up a bit since then but the membership has a trial period where you can download as many as you want. To be completely transparent, when you click any of the links for Creative Fabrica and sign up, I receive a commission (a whopping 3 cents). But with that membership you also can download all the fonts, graphics and bundles on their site!. And they have daily freebies and $1 deals everyday.
Between Access and Creative Fabrica I have all the fonts and images I need! I have over 4000 fonts on my computer and am a bit of a fontaholic! Anyone know where they hold the 12 step meetings for that?
Tips About Image Designs
That brings me to another tip. Make sure the thing you are putting them on is fairly light. I did a crystal ball on a blue shirt and it did not turn out well at all.
The third thing to remember is that printers do not print white. So if an image has large areas of white, it may not work well.
Other Things You Will Need
I wasn’t about to buy special sublimation paper if I didn’t need to so I just used regular printer paper. The colors may be a little better on the expensive paper, I don;t know. I was perfectly happy with the way they turned out on this paper.
You are going to also need a heat press of some kind. I have the 12 X 9 Easypress and with them on clearance at Walmart these days, I would recommend one. The bigger the better. You cannot move the heat source around so it needs to cover the whole design. Friends have other types of heat press and those work too and have some really nice attachments for hats and cups. A regular iron does not heat up enough. They must get to 400 degrees and only the real expensive one do. Otherwise the colors don’t transfer well and the image, although it will transfer, it looks washed out.
Follow the heat instructions that you would for infusible ink.
Using Your Cricut
You can print any print then cut image in your Cricut. Just make sure you send it to the right printer, Also you can use Infusible ink pens on the image. For the fourth project above I used a line drawing from Access on a full page texture I printed and it drew the lines for the Hamza with a dark blue infusible ink marker. And then it cut the image out, just like you would with infusible ink sheets. Since I used regular copy paper that is the setting I used on my Cricut to cut it out. I think it looks wonderful!
Conclusion
I am so happy with my new printer and now I don’t have to be limited by the infusible ink designs that Cricut makes and can print almost anything out to put on a shirt or anything I have made infusible.
I can’t wait to try more!
I have the same printer – and I got mine at Walmart on Clearance (when the website said there weren’t any in the store – but it was on the shelf). I used Hippo ink, and it sounds like the rest is the same. I tried it with a Sublimation paper and with Laser Copy paper, and really haven’t seen much of a difference, I think the sublimation paper dries a little quicker off the printer, but i didn’t have any issues as I didn’t print that fast anyhow. When you set your printer to use the highest quality, it takes it’s time, but I haven’t had a bad print yet that wasn’t self induced by forgetting to tape it down good and it ghosted a little on the side that didn’t get taped good. I have found that making my designs for sublimation works best for me to use PowerPoint. This way I have a slide for each print that I want to make again and again. Doesn’t hurt any that I use PowerPoint for work for years in a previous lifetime. I love my new printer and the possibilities are expanded with it through the roof. I do find that butcher paper works well with the pressing process as it will absorb any and all ink vapors that dont sink into the material you are pressing on and helps protect through the other side of the shirt. Also on darker colored shirts, it appears that if you slightly bleach out the color, it doesn’t affect the printed design, even after pressing it on, but that will be my next test. I have found some polyester tshirts cheap at Costco in the underwear sections They have a selection of soft pastel colors that is limited but the price is right (3 shirts for $10).
another idea is to first use a glitter HTV and sublimate on top of that – so it won’t matter what color it is or what material it is, the sublimation works on the glitter in the HTV, and if you can catch the glitter HTV in the sale or clearance bins, even better to stock up on. I found a few rolls in the clearance section at Michaels pretty cheap.
Target has the ecotank 2720 on sale right now for $199.99. If you have a RedCard, you get 5% off, and the shipping is free. Thanks for this post! I think I know what I want for my birthday.
I bought my Epson ET 2720 from Costco in May and got it for $184. I purchased the Hippo Ink from Amazon. It came with the syringes, but after looking at a few You Tube videos, I discovered that you could avoid the hassle of the syringes. You can twist off the caps from the Epson Ink bottles, dispose of the ink, and rinse out the bottles. You can then refill them with the sublimation ink. Each of the Epson Ink bottles tops are designed to fit each of the ink color types. It worked like a charm. I love having the option of using the Epson printer and not having to rely on whatever fusible ink paper is available from Cricut.