Best Home Tips and Tricks: How to Print on Burlap

How to Print on Burlap – The Easiest Way!

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Learn how to print on burlap fabric using this simple technique!

Printing on Burlap

You guys, I sometimes pretend like I’m such a crafty person.

And the truth is – I do love crafts and being creative.

But man oh man, do I sometimes struggle. If you could only be a fly on the wall as I work on projects (on second thoughts, that wouldn’t be a pretty sight).

There’s a reason why my basement is full of half-made projects!

For this month’s “Create with Cricut” challenge I co-host with Amber from AmberSimmons.com, our mystery material was burlap.

I thought, no big deal. I’m sure it will be easy to make an awesome project!

Originally, I planned to show you how to make 3D flowers with burlap and put them on a wreath…and it was going to be beautiful.

Well, instead of cutting the spirals I was anticipating, my burlap just totally got shredded to pieces.

So that idea got thrown out the window!

Then I thought, maybe I’ll make a cute burlap wedding invitation! I mean, my Cricut wedding invitation post always does well – this should too!

Well, if I had kept it simple, this would have been a great idea. But then I thought, hey, maybe I should PRINT the text onto the burlap and then use print and cut.

And it worked beautifully…until my machine couldn’t recognize the print lines. You see, the Maker can use different colored materials for print and cut…but I didn’t factor in that burlap has holes in it, so the black line wasn’t completely solid.

So today, I am just going to share how to print on burlp using your inkjet printer! It’s actually a pretty cool technique – and you can use it whether you have a Cricut or not. However, I will be giving some tips on how I started the project using my machine. If you don’t have a Cricut, just be really careful with cutting. One of the big reasons I have a Cricut is because I can’t cut straight. HA.

You can use this to make custom prints, decor, and more! Below you’ll see a pretend wedding announcement as well as a design I got from CraftBundles.com (specifically their March Bundle), but I hope you’ll let your creativity go wild. I love how this looks, and there really are so many possibilities. I love that you can do it in black and white AND color!

Let me know what you make – I want to see!

Printing on Burlap

Materials:

Burlap (I do recommend a darker color than I did)

Ink Jet Printer (I love my HP Envy 7640)

Cricut Maker/Explore Air OR Scissors

Instructions:

Step One:

Create your design. I made mine in Cricut Design Space, which is my primary design software. Depending on the complexity of what you want to print, you can even get away with using Microsoft Word. PicMonkey is a great place to create designs. I’ve been using them for years!

Step Two:

You will need to cut out a 8.5×11 sheet of freezer paper and burlap. This is where my Cricut Maker became rather handy. I just went into Design Space and created a rectangle sized to 8.5×11 (just put a square on the canvas, unlock the dimensions, and then change the dimensions).

I cut out the freezer paper and the burlap (separately), and it cut them perfectly straight. Much straighter than I would have cut! I used the purple StrongGrip mat from Cricut for the freezer paper (but be VERY careful peeling it up), and the pink mat with the burlap – along with the rotary blade.

If you are just using scissors, I would get a blank piece of printer paper, trace carefully around it on the freezer paper and burlap, and then cut it out carefully.

Step Three:

Place the shiny side of the freezer paper against the burlap. Use an iron to press the paper into the burlap so they adhere together. I used my EasyPress on 300 degrees.

Make sure you trim and excess of the burlap that overlaps the freezer paper.