I Will Not Comply T-Shirt

I Will Not Comply T-Shirt

I made this T-shirt for my niece whose mother complains she is a bit…um…non-compliant. I used my Silhouette CAMEO to cut the phrase out of gold and black glitter heat transfer material. A tutorial follows for how to keep the words straight and nicely centered, in spite of multiple colors.

Back story

My sister-in-law and I were watching an old Star Trek Voyager episode on Netflix where Seven of Nine did not agree with Captain Janeway. Seven of Nine had a great line where she told the captain, “I Will Not Comply.” We had a good laugh out of that, and my sister said her daughter needed that on a T-shirt. And of course I said I could do it. That was a couple of months ago.

So…my niece turned 7 last week and received this “I Will Not Comply” T-Shirt as a birthday gift. She may not get the joke, but it’s sparkly gold and black on pink, so she’ll enjoy that while her mom gets a laugh. Sometimes you have to laugh at those stubborn little ones so you don’t cry. 😉

Applying Multiple Colors of Heat Transfer

I did not want to fiddle with straight lines and spacing on my shirt since I had done all that work already on my work page in Silhouette Studio. This method has more vinyl waste than eyeballing the text placement on a shirt, but it takes away a lot of the potential for error. I was able to layer the weeded heat transfer together before applying it to the shirt. Here’s how:

• In Silhouette Studio, I used the Text tool to type my three lines. This font is LW Creative.
• Once my text was typed, I made a copy to manipulate and set the original off to the side in case I wanted to edit the text for any reason later.
• With the copied text still on the work page, I Ungrouped it in order to remove any odd sizing or spacing issues that you will sometimes get with text when you are trying to read the size of its bounding box.
• I then Grouped each individual line. “I will” together as a group, “NOT” together, and “comply” as a third grouping.
• I then used my Align Window tools to center and space everything so it looked good to me.
• I resized everything to fit the shirt.
• In my Replicate Window, I made a Mirror Right copy because you always need to cut heat transfer material in reverse. (Move the forward-facing text off the work space or delete it.)
• Since my spacing looked good, I Grouped the first and third lines together so they could be cut from gold glitter heat transfer, and the middle line could be cut from black glitter heat transfer.
• I set my Page Size in the Design Page Settings Window to match the area my design needed for cutting. My larger piece (gold) could be cut from 5.5” wide x 5” high heat transfer.

• To actually cut the gold heat transfer, I cut a piece 5.5” wide x 5” high, placed it on my CAMEO cutting mat shiny-side down, adjusted my cut settings for “Heat Transfer – Flocked” in the Cut Settings Window. (There is no separate setting for glitter heat transfer, but the flocked setting has always worked well for me.)
• I moved the black word off to the side so only the gold letters remained on the workspace, then sent it to cut.

• To get the black word back in position, I just clicked Undo. Or you could use the Align Window to center it again within the gold letters.
• Then move just the gold letters off to the side so they won’t cut.

• Finally, use the keyboard arrow keys to move the black word directly up to the top of the work space so it doesn’t lose its left-right centered position.

• Trim a piece of black glitter heat transfer material to the same width as the gold we cut earlier (5.5” wide). The height on mine was about 1.5” tall.
• Place the black glitter heat transfer on the mat (shiny-side down), and send it to the Silhouette to be cut.
• Weed the excess material away with a hook tool for both the black and the gold glitter heat transfer.
• Now with the sticky backing exposed, you can center the black word inside the gold words. The left-right positioning should be easy because we designed and cut them the same width. Make sure the heat transfer of both colors is actually facing out so it will be against the shirt when placed against it.

• Finally, press the phrase by hand against the shirt. The sticky backing should be enough to hold it in place while you step back to see if it’s straight.
• Iron it down with an iron on a cotton setting. If you feel your iron runs too hot, use a thin piece of cloth or something like parchment paper between your iron and the heat transfer backing. I iron directly on the plastic backing and it has never melted.

• Press and hold long enough over all areas until the backing pulls up easily and the heat transfer remains on the shirt. I usually flip the shirt inside out and give it a good ironing on the reverse side, as well.

There you have it! A sparkly shirt for a little girl that will make her parents laugh when she gets a little obstinate.

Supplies/Tools Used:

12″ black glitter heat transfer material
12″ gold glitter heat transfer material
Hook tool
Silhouette CAMEO
Iron
T-shirt (pre wash for best results)

This post contains affiliate links. It won’t change your price, but it helps you by getting exactly the product I used, and it helps me by giving me a little kickback to help support this blog. Win-win. 🙂

Save