Combine Glitter and Brick Materials for a 3D Sparkle Effect!

I love learning new things every day! Take the above picture for example, I layered Jade Glitter on top of White Brick. Before today, I didn’t even consider this combination. Thanks to a wonderful customer of ours, Big Texas Bling, I had to give this a try.

First things first, I had to come up with a design. I decided to mix three things: my current excitement, the ever famous crop tool, and a Bella crop top.

I drew up my design in Adobe Illustrator.

Then I had to create my vector foreground layer for my Glitter, so I used “offset path” by -0.08in on the crop symbol.

I created separate layers for the Glitter and Brick material types

Since I’m cutting these two layers on a Roland GX-24, I want to save each layer as an .eps file. An .eps file is compatible with the CutStudio software. Once I have my image in CutStudio, MAKE SURE YOU MIRROR IT! We all forget to do this step from time to time, but make sure you are seeing your image in reverse on your screen before you cut.

Next, I want to set up my cutter for Siser Brick:

1. Load the roll of material.
2. Adjust a 60º blade so its as far out of the blade holder as it can go.
3. Adjust the force to 140gf.
4. Perform a test cut. If you aren’t getting a good test cut, go back to Step 3 and increase the force more.

Once I have my cutter set up, we can send the design for Brick!

After Brick is done, we must set the cutter up for Glitter.

All the aforementioned steps for Brick apply here, except you will adjust your blade holder so the tip of the blade is just barely exposed.

It’s hard to tell, but just the tip of the blade is exposed.

Having the blade exposed all the way for Brick is because the thickness of the material is 1000 microns. Glitter is only 325 microns thick, so it does not have nearly as deep to go for a good cut.

Once we have our cutter set up, we can send the design for Glitter!

…Now we move on to weeding fun…

With my Siser Weeder, I weeded away the excess material and cavities for both the Jade Glitter and White Brick cut pieces.

I’m ready to apply these transfers to a Poly/Cotton blended Bella crop top shirt.

I got my heat press ready at 315°F and set it to a medium pressure. First thing I’m going to do is preheat my garment for 2-3 seconds, and then lay my Brick transfer down in the area I want to apply to.

Make sure you lay down your cover sheet, and then apply for 5 seconds…..

You’re probably thinking “5 seconds, Joe?!? That’s it?!?”… No, that’s not it. The 5 seconds is just to set the Brick HTV in place, so that you can flip the shirt to the backside.

Now we are going to press for 15 seconds on the backside of the shirt. What this is doing is allowing the heating platen access almost directly on the adhesive side of the Brick.

To see the applications process for Siser Brick, you can check our video out here.

Let’s get that Glitter on there too!

Once cooled off, I can peel the carrier off of the White Brick transfer.

I kept the heat press settings all the same, and applied the Jade Glitter transfer for 12 seconds, and peeled the carrier hot.

Do you see what I mean when I say “I love learning something new every day”?!

How cool is that!? THREE DIMENSIONAL GLITTER!

Speaking of “cool”, I applied this to a crop top. I’m not exactly sure it’ll fit me perfectly, but it’ll make for a good summer outfit for yourself or a girlfriend!