Woman in Real Life: Lettuce Eat Plants T-Shirt (With The New Cricut Patterned Iron On)

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Lettuce Eat Plants T-Shirt (With The New Cricut Patterned Iron On)

As I mentioned in this post in which I made some pretty adorable iron-on mini totes (if I do say so myself), I've become a real iron-on enthusiast. Besides the sheer fun of personalizing all the things - tees, totes, towels and totally lots of other things, haha, iron-on is just plain addictive as a process. Once you figure it out (mirror the image before cutting and place the correct side of the material down on the mat) it's completely easy too.

My iron-on addiction means that I was beyond excited to try out Cricut's new patterned iron-on, which comes in nine incredible sampler packs with three different 12" x 17" iron-on sheets in each. All of the designs are beautiful and I plan on making all sorts of things with them, including some personalized hand towels. For my first project, I settled on a veg-friendly "lettuce eat plants" iron-on tee, perfect for your plant-based and/or vegan pals (like me!).

For this project, I used two Cricut fonts and one leaf image that are included with standard Cricut Access. It's well worth buying a monthly plan for this project alone. And you won't need to recreate the project yourself. Simply link to my project here in Design Space and get straight to cutting!

With an adult tee in mind, I made the overall size for this project nine inches wide and close to 4 inches tall. But you can certainly modify the sizing to suit your own creation.

Materials Needed For A Lettuce Eat Plants Patterned Iron-On T-Shirt

Cricut Explore Air™ machine or other cutting machine such as Cricut Maker
Patterned Iron-On (I used the Cricut Nature Walk Basics Patterned Iron-On Sampler)
Cricut StandardGrip Adhesive Cutting Mat
Cricut Tools Weeder
Scissors
T-shirt
Cricut EasyPress or iron
Cricut EasyPress mat

Some of the other patterned iron-on options that I love include the pink and orange Natalie Malan Sunset Blossom sampler (laid out on the mat, above). I really like the watercolour feel of those ones. I also adore the bold patterns and pretty blues of the Filigree Blue sampler. There are lovely floral options as well.

Because my t-shirt is black and grey, I felt that the graphic black and white patterns of the Nature Walk Basics iron-on sheets would be most impactful.

Once you open up the "lettuce eat plants" project in Design Space, you can either re-size it or proceed to cutting. Just remember to turn the mirror function on to flip your design prior to cutting, as above.

Set the custom material to Patterned Iron-On.

Place the iron-on material pattern side down on the cutting mat.

When your cut is done, weed away the excess iron-on material, leaving the image on the plastic liner.

I printed two versions of the "eat plants" wording because I was planning to vary the patterned iron-on I used. But I found that the letters were a bit too thin to properly show off the whiter pattern.

Before applying the images to the t-shirt, give the shirt a wee iron with the EasyPress to heat the surface and smooth out wrinkles. To place the lettering on your tee, you can bring the two armpits of the shirt together and fold the shirt down the length to find the centre of the tee. I prefer to just use a measuring tape to ensure the lettering is balanced.

Cricut recommends applying the patterned iron-on material at 340°F for 50 seconds on the front and then 15 seconds on the back of your material. I just got the EasyPress and I'm finding that it's so much easier to use than an iron. It requires no press cloth for most materials and you simply set the heat and the time needed.

You want to use a hard surface as the foundation of your iron-on project, rather than a (wobbly and soft) ironing board. I protected my table with the brand new Cricut EasyPress mat. It's super simple to pop under your t-shirt or whatever material you're applying your iron-on material to. The mat eliminates moisture and directs heat to your iron-on design so you get flawless iron-on transfers. You can also use it for pressing sewing projects.

Here's the EasyPress with a 15 second setting for the reverse side of the shirt.

Hold the EasyPress firmly over the iron-on image and press the "C" to start the countdown.

Allow the area to cool completely before carefully peeling off the plastic liner.

Don't forget to turn your shirt inside out when washing it. I have my kids so trained to do this, with store-bought or DIY iron-ons. They don't do laundry all that often to be honest, but they know they need to turn these types of shirts inside out when they do!

This was a t-shirt I already had in my closet. I feel like iron-on is such a great way to update clothing that you might be a little bored with. Give it some personality and it's ready for a whole new life!

And now I'm looking forward to creating many more unique projects with the new patterned iron-on. (I honestly look around the house now for things that I can add iron-on to.) I also want to get my hands on some plain pillow covers so I can make an array of iron-on cushion covers.

Cricut is having an April sale right now, so be sure to check out what's new at Cricut.

Questions for you

Have you tried iron-on? What image or words would you put on your tee? What else would you add iron-on to?

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*This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

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