Frugal Friday: Making the most of expensive HTV and vinyl material

As I told you in my first Frugal Friday tip, I hate to throw away scraps of expensive or beautiful material. I like to try to find ways to reuse the bits and pieces whenever I can. That’s certainly the case with any patterned adhesive vinyl or HTV. My favorite is Sparkleberry. I was using it recently to make a t-shirt and that project is a great one to show you some Frugal Friday tips on using as much of your material as possible.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you click the link and purchase something, I may receive a small commission. You pay the same price. This helps me to be able to keep my business going and provide more tutorials.

Here are the design pieces I’m using:

• Texas shape
• Quatrefoil Screen Pattern as an overlap to cut into it
• Simple heart
• Font called Braveheart

Tip #1: Save the excess around the shape

Let’s say I’ve got a 12″ x 12″ square of the HTV. If I just cut my shape of Texas (the aqua), I’d weed out and toss the material that’s around it. Unacceptable!

So the first tip is really simple. Before you begin weeding, use your scissors to cut away the excess material. Cut just outside the cut line of the shape. Then you can use those scraps for smaller designs.

Tip #2: Use a PixScan mat for the material scraps

Question: What’s the best way to use up the odd-sized scraps you get from following Tip #1? Answer: A PixScan mat! You can place the scraps of material on the mat and then take a photo of the mat or scan it. When you open the photo in Silhouette, you’ll see the exact size and shape of the scrap. Put your designs within its borders and cut away.

For a full tutorial on using the PixScan mat, see this post.

Tip #3: Create a frame to get 2 designs from 1 cut

Okay, so far so good. But I want to go even farther. Here’s the design I have in mind.

If you want to know how I got a realistic-looking preview with the patterned HTV, see this post.

Lovely! But I realized that since I’m planning to use the middles of the design (so the parts of the aqua Texas you see between the yellow), I would be weeding out some of my beautiful patterned glitter HTV material (the yellow).

PRO TIP: Raising the transparency of the fill to around 35% allows you to see through a shape to what’s behind it. That’s very helpful in a project such as this.

I wanted to find a way to not waste those parts because, hello, glitter Sparkleberry. (By the way, if you’re wondering, the pattern I’m using is called Featherly Teal.) By planning ahead, I could get both these pieces with 1 cut:

Cool huh?

Here are the steps to do that

• Start with a solid shape (my Texas) and a single-piece overlay (my quatrefoil pattern). The latter needs to be a single piece so we can easily remove and save it. Notice that all the parts of my quatrefoil pattern are connected.

PRO TIP: As you’re aligning your pieces, watch out for small bits at the outer edges. They can be difficult to work with when weeding.

• Make copy of the original solid shape with CTRL/CMD + C. We aren’t pasting it yet – just keeping it for a future step.
• Make sure the overlay is on top (front) in the order. Select the solid shape and overlay design. Open the Modify panel and Subtract. This uses the overlay to cut holes in the solid. While those pieces are still selected, in the Modify panel choose Make Compound Path.

• Being careful not to move the newly created design, fill it with a color other than that of your original solid shape.

• Here’s where we’ll bring back in that copy we made of your solid shape. Use the keyboard shortcut CTRL/CMD + F to paste it right where the original was. If by chance you moved your shape and so they aren’t aligned, use the Centralize option to line them up both horizontally and vertically with 1 click.

• Select that solid shape you just pasted and create an offset of it. Delete the solid shape you pasted. You’re left with the patterned design and the offset. Fill the offset with a different color (I used purple).

• You can cut it just like that, but it’s a bit hard to visualize the outcome. So select both and do Make Compound Path in the Modify panel. Then you’ll see what you’ve got.

Almost done!

Now I’ve colored my design with a darker color and put that square of my Sparkleberry print back behind it to help me visualize the cut of the material.

I want to have a heart-shaped hole in the middle so I can add the phrase “Deep in my heart.” So I position it over the design and weld it on.

I’m still going to use Tip #1 to cut away the outer parts of the material to save. But using this technique also, I can get a second piece. My 2 pieces will be–

1. What’s in black above. Once I remove it, I can put it on a piece of sticky carrier to save it for a future project.
2. All the colored parts inside the Texas. Those are the pieces I’ll leave on the carrier to apply them to my shirt. On this piece, the heart will be empty so that I can add my phrase that I’ve cut from a solid color.

Here’s my finished shirt and my leftover piece.

Did you know you can put HTV on a painter’s canvas? See my tutorial on that here.

A different option

Let’s say you want use the larger internal pieces of material with the frame, like this:

It’s a similar process:

• Start with same 2 shapes, making sure the overlay is in front.
• Make a copy of the solid shape.
• Select both and subtract.
• Select all the resulting pieces and make them a compound path.
• Fill that with a new color.
• Paste that copied shape back in front with CTRL/CMD + F.

Here’s where it gets different

In the Quick Access Toolbar or the Line Styles panel, raise the line thickness of that copied shape. By doing this, you are creating both an internal and external offset simultaneously. How much you raise it depends on the size of your shape and your personal preference. Here I’ve made it yellow and raised the transparency as well. You can see through the yellow to the quatrefoil design behind it. Notice that it covers the edges of the shape.

I left a rounded corner line style, but you can make it a sharp corner if you like. Make sure the shape is filled with color.

Select that shape. We’re going to use another Modify tool – Detach lines – to separate that thick line from the shape. That gives us 2 individual shapes — the solid Texas and the Texas frame.

Once it’s separated delete the shape, leaving only the frame over the quatrefoil piece.

Select that frame and your patterned piece and Weld. By using this technique, you ensure that your frame covers those edges of the quatrefoil shape.

If you want the heart added, put it in place, select both and Subtract. Then select all the resulting pieces and make them into a compound path.

This time, you leave the yellow parts of the material on the carrier. That’s because they aren’t all connected pieces and the carrier holds them in place. The white is what you’d weed out and save, because that IS connected as 1 piece. Just know that you won’t have a solid edge on that piece. It would look like this as a shape…

…and this when I cut and remove it from my patterned material…

Adding an outer edge (optional)

Want an edge? Try putting a solid Texas shape in a solid HTV or vinyl behind that, then put the patterned material on top.

Just make sure your HTV brands can be layered on one another. For example, I know I can layer solid Siser Easyweed and Sparkleberry smooth. Glitter HTV, however, it not something to put under any other product.

What type of material does this work with?

This is something you can usually do with glitter or flocked HTV because it’s thicker. Smooth HTV is much thinner and floppy, so it’s hard to get it back on the carrier or onto a project. Smaller pieces tend to work better. Or, if you can get it laid out on your project, just cover it with a carrier as you press (that protects it from the high heat).

Regular adhesive vinyl is also pretty thin and floppy, but some of the glitter type has enough body to use it in this way. I suggest trying a few small pieces first. Remember, the idea is to get the most out of your material, not waste it.

This works with beautiful paper. It leaves lots of little pieces, but check out this hack for a great way to get those placed on your project. You can even use the same principles to re-create your design on a sticky HTV carrier sheet.

With any material, you can use the outline piece on your project and then keep those internal pieces for another project since they have nice shapes. Try combining them into new designs. Look at this for example–

Have fun and be frugal!