How to Host a Baby Shower Onesie Bar with Heat Transfer Vinyl!

Hey there Rozzy Crafters! Are you looking for something new to try at a baby shower? This post will show you the new trend of guests creating onesies for the baby on the way! This activity is the perfect way to get your guests creative, create usable gifts for your mom-to-be, and keep your guests entertained! Plus, it can fit into any themed shower and works great for both genders!!

Supplies Needed

• 10-15 onesies to be decorated (maybe more depending on how many guests you expect)
• Various HTV colors (based on designs and your and your mom-to-be’s preferences)
• Home iron
• Parchment paper or Teflon paper
• Weeding tools
• Scissors
• Paper (decorative preferred, matching your theme and other decorations is best)
• Frame and easel to display instructions**
• Clothes pins**
• String or twine**
• Basket**

**Optional, these are used for displaying all the parts of the activity, you can use whatever you like to display everything.

Prep Work

You want to prepare as much of your project as possible ahead of time. Most people are not familiar with using heat transfer vinyl. You will have to explain the activity pretty thoroughly for most, so you don’t want to have them work on weeding out the negatives for the HTV or anything else that you can do before hand.

Come up with 10-15 designs for the onesies. Make sure you have at least 2 extra designs. This allows for mess ups if needed and also lets people get to choose their design even if they are the last one picking. Easy go-to’s are the baby’s name in various fonts and colors. Word of warning, keep the designs fairly easy, try to avoid requiring layering. Most people will not have experience with HTV. So, if you make it too complicated this can lead to lots of mess ups and waste of product. Go for single colors whenever possible. You can always make more elaborate onesies for baby on your own and give them to mom-to-be as a gift from you!

Here are some ideas that I used:

• love my tribe
• happy holla days
• handpicked for earth by my grandma in heaven
• aviator glasses
• new to the crew
• good vibes only
• gangsta napper
• hello, world
• mas leche

If there is a holiday somewhat near the due date, I recommend at least one or more designs for that holiday. Everyone loves a baby in a “My first Thanksgiving” onesie. Plus, babies usually go through 2-3 onesies per day, so the more the merrier.

SO MANY OPTIONS FOR THIS!!!!

So, you want to cut and weed each design. Standard sizing for onesies is for the design to be 3” x 6”.

Leave the carrier sheet on the design as is and stick it altogether onto a blank piece of paper, then add a piece of decorative washi tape to hold it in place. This is the best way I found to transport them and keep them clean and in good condition. Use paper that can go with the color of the decorations at the shower and can be part of the decorations too.

You can get onesies in various sizes and colors. For instance, short sleeved and long sleeved, newborn and 0-3 months, all white, or the whole rainbow.

Optional prep work before the day of would be getting all of the onesies out of the packaging and taking off any tags. A great thing to do is fold each one in half and iron, creating a crease in the middle to give an easy mark to center designs. Also, crease the designs to mark the center of each of them as well.

I do that by folding them in half with out making them stick and crease them in the middle at the top of the carrier sheet and the bottom. There should be space between the design and the edge of the carrier sheet so that your crease will not affect your design. This is a simple way to make sure that the designs will be centered on the onesies.

The set up

You will want a rather large space just dedicated to this activity. It helps to get it all set up and ready to go prior to the shower. Put the onesies in a large basket in the middle of the table.

Put the instructions in a frame in front of the basket also in the middle of the table to ensure that everyone can easily read them. Instructions should be clear and concise.

Here are the instructions:

1. Pick a onesie.
2. Select a design.
3. Remove the paper backing, leave the plastic.
4. Match the creases on the design to the ironed crease on the onesie to ensure it is centered.
5. Design should be placed 1” below the neckline.
6. Press down on the design to make sure it is flat and stuck to the onesie.
7. Place a piece of Teflon (gold) sheet on top of the design.
8. Place the iron on top, do not move it around.
9. Press down on the iron to create pressure, hold in place for 25-30 seconds. If design to large for single press, pick up iron and move to rest of design; press again for 25-30 seconds.
10. Remove Teflon sheet, allow vinyl to cool.
11. Remove plastic carrier sheet carefully.
12. Place Teflon sheet over design and press again for 15-20 seconds.
13. Hang onesie on twine with clothespin to cool.

Display the designs around the table. Can be on wall behind, on the table, or hanging from the table. I suggest twine or string and clothespins for this part. Add decorations that go with your theme on your table or surrounding it to incorporate it fully into your shower.

Make sure you have an outlet near the table to plug in the iron. I would go ahead and plug the iron in and get the settings ready prior to anyone arriving so it will be heated and ready to use. Proper settings should be hottest setting (for mine is linen) and no steam. I actually make sure all the water is out completely so that I don’t accidentally use the steam.

You can go ahead and set out one or two onesies ready to be used!

Wanna go the extra mile?

I recommend only using matte HTV for this activity, but you can of course use any others including glitter, metallic, or flock. The only issue with using various styles is the instructions may vary and using an iron does not always easily work for these materials. My preference is to use the matte HTV and if I want to make and more detailed onesie, I will just make that for the mom-to-be on my own.

For even further decoration for your onesies, you can provide extra embellishments that can be added. This works best for little girls. Some extra embellishments could include bows, rhinestones, tulle, glitter, etc.

I recommend you take the onesies home with you to inspect and perfect them before they go to the mom-to-be. Some won’t be pressed long enough, some too long, others will be crooked. I am a perfectionist, so I want to make sure that everything was just right before I send the onesies to their home. You can check them at the shower and if they look fine, send them on their way.

Conclusion

We hope this inspired you to try this activity at the next baby shower you host!

Have any questions or suggestions on how to make this activity even better? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook!