Hi Everyone! It's Mandy, here again from the ever-awesome www.SugarBeeCrafts.com - -I wanted to share with you how I made this Skull Heart Valentine Shirt - - it uses the technique of layering tshirt vinyl. If you've never used that technique, I have a quick tutorial for you.

I saw this shirt in an email from Old Navy and knew I could make something similar and be super thrifty...I had purchased a raglan tshirt this summer at a garage sale (I'm thinking $0.50) and knew it'd come in handy for a refashion. Meanwhile, my son wore it and refashioned it with hot chocolate - awesome. Here's a visual of the inspiration and what I had to work with:

The skull with the heart patch was perfect to cover the stain. I used heat transfer, aka T-Shirt Vinyl, in layers and if you haven't done that, give it a try - it adds depth and layers to the design. I first pulled up my design in the Silhouette Studio (mirrored, because that's what you do with heat transfer). I made the whole image the size I wanted:

Then I "ungrouped" everything. Then I could click on the line components that made up the heart patch (hold "control" while selecting to select more than one thing at a time). When you have all the components selected, drag them to the side and off the cutting area.

Then cut the skull out of the Easyweed Grey Heat Transfer from ExpressionsVinyl.com.

Then drag the skull off the cutting area and drag the heart eye patch on. Then cut again, this time loading red heat transfer (my red was Stripflock, which means it's a little fuzzy) into the machine.

Now, to apply it to the shirt. When layering iron-on vinyl, start with the bottom layer. So first goes the Grey:

Iron on as normal. Peel off the clear transfer sheet. Then lay the heart eye patch into into it's place and iron it on:

And when it's secure, peel the clear transfer sheet off the eye patch. I then iron everything again to make sure it's nice and secure (I use a pressing sheet when ironing so the vinyl doesn't directly touch the iron).

Now, you could you stop there. That's all the inspiration shirt had. But I thought I'd be fun to incorporate some stitching for that added touch of love. To stitch onto knit tshirts, you'll need to iron on some stabilizer to the underside of the shirt - you can kind of see that here:

Then slowly work stitching around the skull using a sewing machine, or even hand stitching. I did inside the eyes and nose, but not the grin because I didn't think I could get precise enough for the tight teeth spaces.

I love the extra little touch the stitching gives the shirt:

And wear it proudly!!

Ever tried layering heat transfer vinyl?? You can do it! Thanks so much for having me here on Expressions Vinyl. Be sure to stop by www.SugarBeeCrafts.com!