How To Make Iron On Badges From Fabric Prints

Here's a fun no-sew fabric craft that takes only a few minutes.

It's fun and easy to make embellish clothes and accessories with fabric print badges.

All you need is an iron and paper backed fusible interfacing such as Wonder-Under or Heat and Bond and a little imagination!  You don't need any sewing equipment at all.

Little Sock Monkey Iron on Badge

I'll show you how I added this little monkey to my playtime baseball cap. If you want to make the cap too, the pattern is in my etsy store.  But you can easily add badges to all sorts of fabric articles.  

Choose fabric that has clearly defined images that you can cut out easily. You might have scraps at home, or a garment to re-purpose.  Most stores will have a minimum amount of fabric that you need to purchase, but it is usually only about 10cm or 1/8yd.   Cotton or cotton blend fabrics, wool or felt all work well because they can be ironed at a fairly high temperature. You can use more delicate fabrics, but you need to be careful with your iron! 

As soon as I saw this sock monkey fabric, I imagined it as an embellishment for a denim overall, but it ended up on a hat!  



Step 1

 Follow the manufacturer's directions and apply the paper backed interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric. 
   
 Do not cut out the image you want until after you have applied the fusible! Or else you will end up with interfacing fused to your iron.

Step 2

Use sharp scissors to cut out the image you would like.  I usually do a rough cut and then cut as close to the edge of the image as possible.

Step 3
Carefully position the image on the fabric.  You can place a linen press cloth between the iron and the badge if you are working with delicate fabric, but be careful not to move the badge.
Iron onto the fabric and voila!  You can embellish it with embroidery or decorative sewing machine stitched if you like, but you don't have to sew.

This is a fun way to embellish anything made of fabric.  I think these little monkeys would look great on the pockets of kids' jeans, or on a backpack or lunch bag.  

Have fun!