I am presently using iron-on transfers that have been printed on my color inkjet printer.
These transfers are ironed on to felt pouches.
Any ideas on something laserable that would work?
Rowmark says their Laserlights would work except the adhesive is not manufactured to adhere to soft goods.
Funny you should ask, this was just discussed in another thread. One sec, finding…
Here you go:
If you search for “iron on” you might find even more (you actually should have seen this one? IDK, discourse searching can be weird), but this one is nice and recent and seems to cover you. Post pics of what you make 
A suggestion: I know many do not want another machine but a small vinyl cutter with HTV would be a more cost effective solution if you doing alot of these labels in the long run.
A new direction (heh, say it slowly)… make leather “patches,” and just rivet them on.
(I did throw some leather glue on the back of this as well.) Something small like your bags, that may not get a lot of handling over time, maybe the glue would be enough. This is on a canvas bag used to hold ‘flow toys.’ (flower stix and leviwands)
I have a cricut, and the skills I learned cutting on it were what let me hit the ground running with the Glowforge. The workflow is almost identical, Inkscape for vectors, upload to a server, final alignment and settings, and go.
It’s perfect for cutting “vinyl” (sometimes polyurethane) and has only a couple of advantages/disadvantages compared to a glowforge for this application. You can get them used for dirt cheap (ebay cricut explore, ~$100USD), even new (check out the ‘cricut maker’, $375 ish) they’re pretty reasonable.
Not even a lil’ bit sorry! LOL
if you’re going to go this kind of direction, you might want to look into the saddle collection at johnson plastics. i just picked up a few sheets, but haven’t engraved/cut any yet.
at $3/sheet for 12x24, pretty inexpensive. probably pretty consistent (looks like it, but again haven’t engraved any yet).
Ideally I think something two layer that I could engrave the top layer away to leave the lettering and then a peel off backing to pressure press on the pouch.
Intriguing! Thanks for the link.
could you engrave directly into the felt bag?
Oh now that’s an interesting idea. I wonder of those bags are synthetic and would melt or what.
yeah, would need to know what the material actually was, lots of plastic stuff that’s called felt these days.
Otherwise, maybe using the GF to cut a template, and silkscreen the bags.
or maybe this method could work, using a polyester adhesive film instead of vinyl (so as to be able to cut the design in the laser).
You could make HTV transfers easily on a Cricut type machine but weeding all those tiny letters, for every bag… that would get old really fast. Trust me, I do that kind of stuff, and I would not want to sign myself up for more than a few of those transfers.
Something that the laser can do almost completely, which you then attach to the bag, would be much more pleasant. Maybe you can use that leather stuff to make a tag, and hang the tag off the drawstring?
Or, if you want to do a transfer onto the bag, maybe there is a place that will sell you 100 ready-to-go-transfers.
I doubt that because if you leave the iron on the felt too long it melts. Just 3 quick swipes with the hot iron, with a piece of parchment paper over the label, and it is adhered.
could you just use a fabric adhesive, like one of these??
https://www.amazon.com/Aleenes-AR12-2-No-Sew-fabric-Multicolor/dp/B00114RF8O
https://www.amazon.com/Aleenes-Fabric-Fusion-Permanent-Adhesive/dp/B00178QSE6
This would certainly speed things up, seems like?
if the material is safe to laser, it could still be worth trying some tests. Comparing a hot-iron to a laser is maybe like comparing a Butcher’s cleaver to a scalpel… both go through flesh quickly, but one is a little more precise than the other, and maybe more suited to detail work!
Granted, it might still just end up as a melty, crackly, stiff mess.
