What Cricut Materials do I Need to Make Shirts?

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Cricut. All opinions are 100% mine.

Cricut makes it super easy to make your own personalized shirts. I’m going to show you how to make shirts with both infusible ink and iron-on vinyl as well as show you the variety of materials they offer for personalizing shirts.

I’ll be using my Cricut Maker 3 for both of these projects. I’ve had this machine for a while now I have been so happy with it, particularly with the versatility of projects that I am able to do.

How to Make a Shirt with Infusible Ink

Infusible ink is my current favorite for personalizing shirts. Iron-on vinyl sits on top of the fabric but infusible ink becomes like a part of the fabric itself.

Supplies Needed

• Cricut Maker 3
• Standard Grip Machine Mat
• Cricut infusible ink
• weeding tool and tweezers from the tool set
• Cricut EasyPress 3
• Cricut EasyPress Mat
• white cardstock
• lint roller
• Cricut shirt blank

Tutorial

Design

Create an image in Design Space, choose one of the many awesome designs available or use the chess design that I made. I chose to make a chess themed shirt for my chess-loving son. I took images of chess pieces and lined them up. When you get your design just the way you like it click the Make It button.

Cut

Now you will see choose your mat and see your design in Design Space as it will lay out on the cutting mat. Adjust the position if needed. Be sure to mirror your design. Click continue.

Design Space will walk you through choosing your materials and how to load your materials and the cutting blade. You should choose infusible ink transfer sheet from the materials list.

Put the infusible ink transfer sheet onto the mat with the liner side down. Load the mat into the machine and press the Go button.

When it’s done cutting unload the mat from the machine. Peel the design off of the mat. Trim away the parts of the sheet that you do not need.

Now you’re going to remove the paper from the design that you do not need. The easiest way to do this is to kind of roll the design so that the paper lifts from the liner a bit.

Use your tweezers to remove the little bits of paper (the negative space of your design) but leave your design on the liner. Trim the liner so that it would fit under the Cricut EasyPress 2.

Assemble

Wash and dry the t-shirt blank to prepare it. Lay it on top of the EasyPress mat. Put the piece of cardstock inside the shirt.

Take a lint roller and roll it over the entire front of the shirt. You need to remove anything off of the shirt to make sure that the image transfers.

Cover the shirt with butcher paper from the infusible in package.

Check the Cricut Heat Guide for the settings for your particular project. If you have the Cricut Heat App for the EasyPress then it will guide you. For the shirt blank that I’m using and the infusible ink I followed the instructions to preheat it for 15 seconds at 385 degrees.

After preheating you will place the infusible ink sheet down on top of the shirt with the liner side up. Cover it with the butcher paper from your infusible ink package. Then press it according to the directions from the heat guide. I pressed mine for 40 seconds at 385 degrees.

When you are done pressing carefully lift the EasyPress 3 off of the shirt, trying not to move anything. Then lift off the butcher paper and the infusible ink transfer sheet all while it is still warm.

How to Make a Shirt with Iron-on Vinyl

Iron-on vinyl is fantastic for a nice, bold design on a shirt. There are a ton of options available from Cricut and I’ll show some of those below but first I’ll share a basic tutorial for how to personalize a shirt with iron-on vinyl.

Supplies Needed

• Cricut Maker 3
• Standard Grip Machine Mat
• Cricut iron-on vinyl
• weeding tool and tweezers from the tool set
• Cricut EasyPress 3
• Cricut EasyPress Mat
• Cricut ragland shirt blank

Tutorial

Design

This go around I chose an image in Design Space for my basketball-loving son. You can use my design file or make one of your own. Once you choose your image and adjust the size you like it click the Make It button.

Cut

Now you will choose your mat and see your design in Design Space as it will lay out on the cutting mat. Adjust the position if needed. Be sure to mirror your design. Click continue.

Design Space will walk you through choosing your materials and how to load your materials and the cutting blade. You should choose everyday iron-on from the materials list.

Put the iron-on vinyl face down onto the mat with the shiny side down. Load the mat into the machine and press the Go button.

When it’s done cutting unload the mat front he machine. Peel the design off of the mat. Weed (remove) the parts of the sheet that you do not need.

Assemble

Wash and dry the t-shirt blank to prepare it. Lay it on top of the EasyPress mat.

Check the Cricut Heat Guide for the settings for your particular project. If you have the Cricut Heat App for the EasyPress then it will guide you. For the shirt blank that I’m using and the everyday iron-on vinyl I followed the instructions to preheat it for 5 seconds at 315 degrees.

After preheating you will place the every day iron-on vinyl face down on top of the shirt with the liner side up. Then press it according to the directions from the heat guide. I pressed mine for 30 seconds at 315 degrees.

Slowly remove the liner when it is cool to the touch.

Different Types of Iron-on Vinyl

Just to show you some of the many types of iron-on vinyl available I made a shirt showing a few. The ones I used on this shirt are:

• Glitter Iron-on
• Holographic Iron-on
• Everyday Iron-on Mesh
• Patterned Iron-on

Cricut keeps coming out with amazing new materials all the time and I love to try them all out. Which of the materials do you like best for making personalized t-shirts?

More Cricut Fun