Welcome back to the craft room and today’s God Bless America HTV T-Shirts post! Happy 4th of July to all of my American visitors! Today I want to share one of my first SVG designs that I created and turned into a shirt using Cricut Heat Transfer Vinyl. It is a very simple design as SVG’s go, but I’m super of proud of it! Let’s have a look.
God Bless America SVG
I created this text only design in the free design program Inkscape. The fonts used for the main sentiment is Perfectly Vintages and then for the rest of the sentiment I used Gabriola. Both of the fonts were downloaded from Creative Fabrica.
When creating the design I pictured it in two colors, red and blue on a white t-shirt. After uploading the SVG into Cricut Design Space I ungrouped the design. Doing this allowed me to attach the words ”God” and ”America” so they would be cut in the same color and in the exact place in the design. I then attached the word ”Bless” and the phrase “Land that I love” to lock them in place as well.
For the red portion of the design I used a roll of Cricut Holographic Sparkle Iron-on. It is such a beautiful deep red color and the holographic sparkles add an amazing touch. The blue is Cricut Everyday Iron-on in Royal. Such a patriotic color and perfect in combination with the red.
Both materials cut beautifully on my Cricut Explore Air 2 machine. I chose the Everyday Iron-on setting and the default pressure for both of them. I still find it fascinating to watch the process, so I took a short video to share with you.
Creating the Shirts
I have used Iron-on vinyl before but the Holographic sparkle vinyl was a bit strange. The iron-on portion of it is very stiff and it was a little difficult getting it off the carrier sheet. I also noticed the carrier sheet between the two materials was different. For Everyday Iron-on it is tacky enough to stick to the fabric you are going to apply it to. The Holographic Sparkle Iron-on, not so much. Since I used my home iron as the heat source I wanted to make sure the transfer wouldn’t move. To do this I added a roll of Cricut Heat Resistant Tape to my ever growing arsenal of supplies.
To create the t-shirt I started with a clean 100% Cotton white t-shirts. I set my iron between the cotton/linen setting and ironed the shirt to press it flat and the dry any moisture from the fabric. After that I used the lint roller to remove anything that might have gotten in the way of a perfect adhesion of the vinyl. I then lined up the red layer and pressed it for about 20 seconds. After letting it cool a moment, I tried pulling off the carrier sheet only to find the first letter had not adhered to the shirt. I replaced the carrier sheet and added heat for another 10 or so seconds and let it cool a bit longer. The second time I tried to remove the carrier sheet, it peeled off perfectly.
I then lined up the second portion of the design and placed a large piece of parchment paper over the entire design. Again, I applied heat and pressure for about 20 to 25 seconds. After letting the design cool to the touch, I peeled off the second carrier sheet. The entire design looked fantastic but I wanted to make sure everything was adhered down properly. So I covered the entire piece with the parchment paper and applied heat and pressure for about 20 to 30 more seconds.
The Finished Shirts
As soon as I picked the shirt up off the table I could tell the design was not straight! As my husband said, the only reason it was noticeable as because of the v-neck, but I still love it and will wear it proudly when we attend the 4th of July parade!
After my shirt was finished I created my husbands in the same fashion. I did a much better job getting everything straight though. Either way they both turned out great!
Thank you so much for joining me for today’s God Bless America HTV T-Shirts post. I hope all of my American visitors have a happy and safe 4th of July celebration!
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