The Most Brilliant Color

Have you heard? I’m back on the Silhouette Creative Design Team! (I enjoyed the 6-month break, but I missed it too much to stay away for a whole year.) Here’s my first project back on the team. I used my Silhouette Curio and Silhouette’s new UV light-sensitive fabric inks. They are so fun!

Find the full step-by-step tutorial HERE.

Here’s the shorter post as it originally appeared on the Silhouette Blog.

Today I’ve got a project that uses smooth heat transfer material, the new UV light-sensitive fabric ink, and the new Silhouette Curio. While the Curio’s primary focus is not for cutting all the same things as its predecessors, the CAMEO and Portrait, it still performs those tasks with the same precision we’ve come to expect and love. This project happened to fit perfectly on the Curio’s basic 8.5” x 6” cutting area. (Note: you can still do this project with a Portrait or CAMEO.)

I have been anxious to try the UV light-sensitive fabric inks since they were announced earlier this year. They did not disappoint! I chose a design that really lets them do their thing.

With a little bit of compound-path magic in Silhouette Studio (tutorial here), I was able to separate the word “COLOR” from the design into an offset and skinny inner letters. I cut the black phrase with smooth black heat transfer material and the thicker letters for “COLOR” from stencil vinyl so I could easily apply UV light-sensitive fabric ink to my shirt.

I ironed down most of the design but saved the inner skinny “COLOR” letters to iron on top of the fabric ink once it was dry.

This is how it looks without sunshine (and before the final layer of heat transfer is applied on top of the stenciled letters).

Once you step outside into bright sunlight, the UV light-sensitive fabric inks pop out into these vivid colors within seconds! It’s really fun to see.

This is such a fun project! And in case you are wondering how these UV light-sensitive fabric inks behave on a variety of background colors, I tested that for you. I think it looks best on white, but it also shows well on medium colors. On black backgrounds you need to apply a layer of white fabric ink first (my black swatch has a row that’s applied on top of white and a row applied directly to the black background).

Design used: Be the Most Brilliant Color Phrase (ID #74105)

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